Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Foreword by

Naoto Kan

|2

The World Nuclear Industry
Status Report 2021

Former Prime Minister of Japan I Member of the House of Representatives, Japan

By

Mycle Schneider

Independent Consultant, Paris, France
Project Coordinator and Lead Author

Antony Froggatt

Independent Consultant, and Deputy Director and SeniorResearch Fellow, Environment and Society Programme,
Chatham House, London U.K.
Lead Author

With

Julie Hazemann

Director of EnerWebWatch, Paris, France
Documentary Research, Modelling and Datavisualization

Ali Ahmad

Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atomand International Security Program (ISP),
Harvard Kennedy School, U.S.
Contributing Author

Mariana Budjeryn

Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom,
Harvard Kennedy School, U.S.
Contributing Author

Yuichi Kaido

Lawyer, Japan
Contributing Author

Thibault Laconde

Consulting Engineer and Founding President of Callendar,
FranceContributing Author

Mathilde Le Moal

Criminologist, Research Associate at Realist Revolt,
FranceContributing Author

M.V. Ramana

Hisako Sakiyama

Chair of the Board of Directors of the 3/11 Fund forChildren with Thyroid Cancer, Former Member of the
National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident
Independent Investigation Commission, Japan.
Contributing Author

Tatsujiro Suzuki

Vice Director, Research Center for Nuclear WeaponsAbolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA), Former ViceChairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission,
Japan
Contributing Author

Ben Wealer

Research Associate, Workgroup for Economic andInfrastructure Policy, Berlin University of Technology(TU Berlin), Germany
Contributing Author

Agnès Stienne

Artist, Graphic Designer, Cartographer,
Le Mans, France
Graphic Design & Layout

Nina Schneider

Freelance
Proofreading, and Production

Friedhelm Meinass
Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human
Visual Artist, Painter, Rodgau, Germany
Security at the Schoool of Public Policy and Global
Cover-page Design, Painting and Layout
Affairs (SPPGA), University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada
Contributing Author
Paris, 2021 © A Mycle Schneider Consulting ProjectWo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Another difficult year. We all thought it could hardly get worse than 2020. Then came 2021. Several
team members lost family members, to COVID-19 or other circumstances. Climate-related disasters
from California to Louisiana, from Germany to Greece, from Argentina to China have dominated thenews. Most of the WNISR team members and contributing authors are living in rather privileged, rather
protected environments, but not all of us, and definitely not all of the families and friends.
Despite all the adverse side-effects of the global situation, here’s The World Nuclear Industry Status
Report 2021 (WNISR2021). Once again, the project coordinator is particularly thankful to everyone who
made the production of this year’s report possible, the authors and data-manager, the designers andartists, the webmaster and all the supporters.
As for so many years now, a big thank you to Antony Froggatt for his conceptual ideas, his contributions,his reactivity and his friendship.
At the core of the WNISR is its database, designed and maintained by data manager and informationengineer Julie Hazemann, who also develops most of the drafts for the graphical illustrations andmanages much of the cooperation with designer and webmaster. She expanded her contribution
significantly over the past few years. As ever, no WNISR without her. Thanks so much.
The WNISR project can solidly count on the regular, reliable, professional and insightful contributions
from M.V. Ramana, Ben Wealer, and for the second year in a row from Ali Ahmad. Many thanks to all ofyou. I’m very fortunate to be working with you.
WNISR2021 has greatly profited from the contributions by six extraordinary new contributing
authors: Hisako Sakiyama (so glad to work with you), Yuichi Kaido (very grateful you took the time),
Tatsu Suzuki (enormously thankful for your contribution and additional help), Thibault Laconde(thanks for the very fruitful cooperation), Mathilde Le Moal (grateful for your original contribution to
the project) and Mariana Budjeryn (glad you could fit it in just after your book). Thank you all so much.
Many other people have contributed pieces of work to make this project possible and to bring it to thecurrent standard. Shaun Burnie stands out as his numerous contributions again have been invaluable
and are highly appreciated. Thank you for your steady presence in this project.
Nina Schneider has expanded her meticulous proof-reading capacities, source verification, and factchecking. Authors have experienced her demanding precision. Her production skills round up her
invaluable input. Thanks so much.
Artist and graphic designer Agnès Stienne created the redesigned layout in 2017 and is constantly
improving our graphic illustrations that get a lot of praise around the world. Thank you.
A big thank-you to Arnaud Martin for his continuous, highly reactive and reliable work on the website
www.WorldNuclearReport.org, dedicated to the WNISR.
For the third time, we owe the idea, design, and realization of the cover to renowned German painterFriedhelm Meinass and designer Constantin E. Breuer, (“who congenially implements his ideas”),
who have also contributed the acclaimed original artwork for the WNISR2019 edition and the cover of
WNISR2020. Thanks so much for another fascinating, original, and very generous contribution.

|3

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 |4This work has greatly benefitted from additional proofreading by Walt Patterson (above all), partial
proof-reading, editing suggestions, comments or other input by Yuri Hiranuma, Amory B. Lovins,Benoît Pelopidas, Andrew Wood, Wenmin Yu, and others. Thank you all.
The authors wish to thank in particular Matthew McKinzie, Eva van de Rakt, Tanja Gaudian, Eva Stegen,Jutta Paulus, and Simon Banholzer for their enthusiastic and lasting support of this project.
And everybody involved is grateful to the MacArthur Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council,
Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament, Elektrizitätswerke
Schönau, and the Swiss Renewable Energy Foundation for their generous support.

NOTE
This report contains a very large amount of factual and numerical data. While we do our utmost to verify
and double-check, nobody is perfect. The authors are always grateful for corrections and suggested
improvements.

Lead Authors’ Contact Information

Mycle Schneider
45, Allée des Deux Cèdres
91210 Draveil (Paris) France
Ph: +33-1-69 83 23 79
E: mycle@WorldNuclearReport.org

Antony Froggatt
53a Neville Road
London N16 8SW United Kingdom
Ph: +44-79 68 80 52 99
E: antony@froggatt.net

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1|5

TABLE OF CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGMENTS

3

FOREWORD

15

KEY INSIGHTS

17

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

19

INTRODUCTION

36

NUCLEAR POWER AND GREEN TAXONOMY .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 38
“AND THE WINNER IS…”  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 41

GENERAL OVERVIEW WORLDWIDE

42

PRODUCTION AND ROLE OF NUCLEAR POWER .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 42
OPERATION, POWER GENERATION, AGE DISTRIBUTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 47
OVERVIEW OF CURRENT NEW-BUILD  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 51
CONSTRUCTION TIMES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 53
Construction Times of Reactors Currently Under Construction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 53
Construction Times of Past and Currently Operating Reactors  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 53
CONSTRUCTION STARTS & CANCELLATIONS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 56
OPERATING AGE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 59
LIFETIME PROJECTIONS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 62

FOCUS COUNTRIES67

BELARUS FOCUS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .67CHINA FOCUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
FINLAND FOCUS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 75
Olkiluoto-3 (OL3) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 77
Faulty Pressurizer Safety Relief Valves . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 80
FRANCE FOCUS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .82Introduction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 82
Worst Performance in Decades  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 84
Nuclear Unavailability Review 2020 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 87
Lifetime Extension, ASN’s Conditional Generic Approval .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 89
The Flamanville-3 EPR Saga Continued .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 92
An EPR “New Model”, an “EPR2”? .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 94
Increasing Role for Renewables Welcome  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 95

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INDIA FOCUS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 95
Strong Push for Renewables .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 96
Nuclear Construction Experiencing Delays .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 97
Rising Costs .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 98
Reactor Imports Make Slow Progress .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 99
JAPAN FOCUS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 100
Overview  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 100
Kansai Electric Dominates Nuclear Operations  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 103
Prospects for Other Additional Reactor Operations  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 112
Reactor Closures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Energy Policy Key to Nuclear Future . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .119
Prospects for Nuclear Power  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 122
SOUTH KOREA FOCUS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 124
Construction  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 124
Typhoon Shutdowns .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .125
Permanent Closure  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 126
Containment Liner Plate Corrosion  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 127
Wolsong Debacle and Uncertainty Over Energy Policy .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 128
Moon Administration’s Energy Policy Under Threat  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 130
TAIWAN FOCUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Reactor Closures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Referendum on Lungmen  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 132
Energy policy  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .133
UNITED KINGDOM FOCUS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  134Serious Ageing Issues .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 136
Pathways to Net Zero  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 138
Nuclear Newbuild  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 139
UNITED STATES FOCUS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  147Overview  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 147
Extended Reactor Licenses  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 149
Reactor Closures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Reactor Construction  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .155
Guilty Pleas and On-going FBI Investigations Over V.C. Summer Project .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 162
Securing Subsidies to Prevent Closures .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 164

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 |7Ohio Corruption Scandal Terminates Nuclear Subsidies Legislation  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 170
Progress Towards Securing Federal Subsidies  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 172

FUKUSHIMA STATUS REPORT · TEN YEARS AFTER175

OVERVIEW OF ONSITE AND OFFSITE CHALLENGES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  175Introduction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .175
Onsite Challenges  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 175
Offsite Challenges .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 178
Conclusion  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 179
HEALTH EFFECTS OF THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER PLANT DISASTER  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 180
Introduction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 180
Principles of Radiation Health Effects .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .181
Survey on Health Effects .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 182
Health Problems of Nuclear Power Plant Workers  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 189
Conclusion  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 189
ESTIMATED COSTS OF FUKUSHIMA DISASTER: OFFICIAL AND INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENTS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 190
Introduction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 190
Estimates by the Government in 2016 and 2021  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .191
An Independent Estimate by JCER in 2017  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 193
An Updated Estimate by JCER in 2019 . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 194
Conclusions .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 196
JUDICIAL DECISIONS ON DAMAGES AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS .  197Introduction . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 197
Historic Ikata Case: Japanese Supreme Court Demands High Level of Nuclear Safety .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 198
Fukushima Case: Judicial Decisions Regarding the Responsibility of TEPCO and the State  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 198
Residents Win Lawsuits, Preventing Restarts .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 201
Volcanic Controversy over the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 202
Mito District Court Rules Against Restart of Tokai Daini .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 206
Conclusion  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 207

CHERNOBYL · 35 YEARS AFTER THE DISASTER BEGAN

208

INTRODUCTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 208
ONSITE CHALLENGES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 208
New Safe Confinement (NSC) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 208
Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 210
Tourism, Conservation, and Research .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .211

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OFFSITE CHALLENGES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 213

NUCLEAR POWER AND CRIMINAL ENERGY218

INTRODUCTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 218
LITERATURE REVIEW  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 220
TYPOLOGY OF CORRUPT PRACTICES  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 223
Bribery  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 224
Grand Collusion Schemes, Counterfeiting, Fraud .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 227
CASE STUDIES: SABOTAGE AND ORGANIZED CRIME IN JAPAN, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 231
Sabotage . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 231
Organized Crime and Nuclear Trafficking .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 232
CONCLUSION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  233

DECOMMISSIONING STATUS REPORT 2021

235

INTRODUCTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 235
Elements of National Decommissioning Policies .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 235
GLOBAL OVERVIEW  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 236
Decommissioning Worldwide  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 236
Overview of Reactors with Completed Decommissioning .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 237
Overview of Reactors with Ongoing Decommissioning in 11 Selected Countries .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 238
Brief Overview of Reactors with Ongoing Decommissioning  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 239
COUNTRY CASE STUDIES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  241Focus Country: Germany .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 242
United States  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 246
Canada .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 250
Japan . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 250
South Korea .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 252
France  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 253
Lithuania . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 254
Italy .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 255
United Kingdom  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 256
Spain .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 257
Russia  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 258
CONCLUSION ON REACTOR DECOMMISSIONING  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  259

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POTENTIAL NEWCOMER COUNTRIES

261

ASIA  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 261
Suspended or Cancelled Programs  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 263
MIDDLE EAST .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 266
CONTINENTAL EUROPE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  277AFRICA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 279

SMALL MODULAR REACTORS280

ARGENTINA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 280
CANADA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 280
CHINA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 282
INDIA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  283RUSSIA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 284
SOUTH KOREA  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  285UNITED KINGDOM .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 287
UNITED STATES  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 288
CONCLUSION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 289

NUCLEAR POWER VS. RENEWABLE ENERGY DEPLOYMENT290

INTRODUCTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 290
INVESTMENT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  291TECHNOLOGY COSTS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 292
INSTALLED CAPACITY AND ELECTRICITY GENERATION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 296
STATUS AND TRENDS IN CHINA, THE EUROPEAN UNION, INDIA, AND THE UNITED STATES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 299
China .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 299
European Union  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 302
India  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 304
United States  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 305
CONCLUSION ON NUCLEAR POWER VS. RENEWABLE ENERGY  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 307

NUCLEAR POWER AND CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE

308

INTRODUCTION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 308
Why climatic disruptions matter? .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 311
OVERVIEW OF CLIMATIC DISRUPTIONS TO THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 312
Indirect climatic disruptions  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 315

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CASE STUDY FRANCE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  316Climate-induced Impact on Nuclear Generation in France Since 2015 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 318
Most Affected Power Plants  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 322
Causes of Climate-Induced Unavailabilities in France .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 324
MANAGING CLIMATE RISKS IN THE FUTURE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 333
Limited Adaptation Options for the Existing, Ageing Fleet .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 333
Factoring Climate Change into New Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
CONCLUSION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  336

ANNEX 1 – OVERVIEW BY REGION AND COUNTRY

339

AFRICA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  339South Africa .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 339
THE AMERICAS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 342
Argentina .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 342
Brazil .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 344
Canada .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 345
Mexico .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 348
United States  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 348
ASIA & MIDDLE EAST  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 348
China .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 348
Iran .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 349
Pakistan .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 351
South Korea .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 352
Taiwan .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 352
United Arab Emirates .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 352
EUROPEAN UNION (EU27)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  354WESTERN EUROPE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  356Belgium .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 357
Finland .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 360
France  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 360
Germany .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 360
Netherlands .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 363
Spain .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 366
Sweden  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 369
Switzerland .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 372

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CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  375Bulgaria .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 375
Czech Republic .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 376
Hungary  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 378
Romania  . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 379
Slovakia .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 381
Slovenia  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 383
FORMER SOVIET UNION  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 384
Armenia  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 384
Russia  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 386
Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

ANNEX 2 – STATUS OF JAPANESE NUCLEAR FLEET392

ANNEX 3 - STATUS OF NUCLEAR POWER IN THE WORLD

394

ANNEX 4 – NUCLEAR REACTORS IN THE WORLD “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”

395

ANNEX 5 – ABBREVIATIONS401

ANNEX 6 – ABOUT THE AUTHORS405

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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 · Nuclear Electricity Generation in the World... and China . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 43
Figure 2 · History of National Nuclear Power Programs .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 44
Figure 3 · Nuclear Electricity Generation and Share in Global Power Generation .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 46
Figure 4 · Nuclear Power Reactor Grid Connections and Closures in the World .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 48
Figure 5 · Nuclear Power Reactor Grid Connections and Closures – The Continuing China Effect  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 49
Figure 6 · World Nuclear Reactor Fleet, 1954–2021 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 50
Figure 7 · Nuclear Reactors “Under Construction” in the World (as of 1 July 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 51
Figure 8 · Average Annual Construction Times in the World  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 54
Figure 9 · Delays for Units Started Up 2018–2020 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 55
Figure 10 · Construction Starts in the World  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 57
Figure 11 · Construction Starts in the World/China .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 57
Figure 12 · Cancelled or Suspended Reactor Constructions .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 58
Figure 13 · Age Distribution of Operating Reactors in the World .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 59
Figure 14 · Reactor-Fleet Age of Top 5 Nuclear Generators  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 60
Figure 15 · Age Distribution of Closed Nuclear Power Reactors . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 61
Figure 16 · Nuclear Reactor Closure Age .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 62
Figure 17 · The 40-Year Lifetime Projection  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 63
Figure 18 · The PLEX Projection (not including LTOs)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 64
Figure 19 · Forty-Year Lifetime Projection versus PLEX Projection .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 65
Figure 20 · Age Distribution of Chinese Nuclear Fleet .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 71
Figure 21 · Operating Fleet and Capacity in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
Figure 22 · Startups and Closures in France  . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 85
Figure 23 · Nuclear Electricity Production in France 1990–2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 85
Figure 24 · Startups and Closures in France  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 86
Figure 25 · Reactor Outages in France in 2020 (in number of units and GWe)  . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 87
Figure 26 · Forced and Planned Unavailability of Nuclear Reactors in France in 2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 88
Figure 27 · Age Distribution of French Nuclear Fleet (by Decade)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 89
Figure 28 · Opinion Survey on Energy Sources in France (in 2020)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 95
Figure 29 · Rise and Fall of the Japanese Nuclear Program  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 101
Figure 30 · Status of the Japanese Reactor Fleet  . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 102
Figure 31 · Age Distribution of the Japanese Nuclear Fleet  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .119
Figure 32 · U.K. Reactor Startups and Closures  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 134
Figure 33 · Age Distribution of U.K. Nuclear Fleet .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .137
Figure 34 · Age Distribution of the U.S. Nuclear Fleet .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 149
Figure 35 · Evolution of Average Reactor Closure Age in the U.S. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 154

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 13Figure 36 · Timelines of 23 Reactors Subject to Early Retirement in the United States  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 165
Figure 37 · Classification of contaminated areas and grouping of patients in causal relationship analysis  .  .  .  .  .  . 186
Figure 38 · JCER Estimates (2019) versus Government Estimates (2016/2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 195
Figure 39 · Irregularities at the French Creusot Forge  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 229
Figure 40 · Overview of Completed Reactor Decommissioning Projects, 1954–2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 237
Figure 41 · Progress and Status of Reactor Decommissioning, 2018–2021 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 239
Figure 42 · Global Investment Decisions in Renewables and Nuclear Power 2004–2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 291
Figure 43 · Regional Breakdown of Nuclear and Renewable Energy Investment Decisions 2011–2020 . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 292
Figure 44 · The Declining Costs of Renewables vs. Traditional Power Sources .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 293
Figure 45 · IEA 2050 Forecasted Cost of Electricity from Nuclear and Renewables, LCOE (US$/MWh) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 295
Figure 46 · Variation of Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the World . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 296
Figure 47 · Net Added Electricity Generation by Power Source 2010–2020 . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 297
Figure 48 · Nuclear vs. Non-Hydro Renewable Electricity Production in the World  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 298
Figure 49 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in the World . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 299
Figure 50 · Nuclear vs Non-Hydro Renewables in China 2000–2020 . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 300
Figure 51 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in China 2000–2020 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 301
Figure 52 · Electricity Generation in the EU27 by Fuel, 2011–2020 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 302
Figure 53 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27 (Developments) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 303
Figure 54 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27 (Absolute Numbers)  .  .  .  .  . 303
Figure 55 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in India .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 305
Figure 56 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in the U.S  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 306
Figure 57 · Solar Panels Over Irrigation Canals in India .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 310
Figure 58 · Attribution of climate change towards the occurrence of extreme weather events  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 311
Figure 59 · Pathways of Climate-Induced Disruptions of the Operation of Nuclear Power Plants .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .313
Figure 60 · Nuclear Power Plant Sites in France with Open and Closed Cooling Systems . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .317
Figure 61 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 319
Figure 62 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Year .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 320
Figure 63 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Month . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 322
Figure 64 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants per Cause and Site .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 323
Figure 65 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Year .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 323
Figure 66 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants – Maximum Unavailabilities .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 324
Figure 67 · The containment of one of the Fessenheim reactors is  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 327
Figure 68 · Nuclear Reactors Startups and Closures in the EU27 1959–1 July 2021 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 354
Figure 69 · Nuclear Reactors and Net Operating Capacity in the EU27  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 355
Figure 70 · Age Distribution of the EU27 Reactor Fleet  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 356
Figure 71 · Age Distribution of the Western European Reactor Fleet (incl. Switzerland and the U.K.) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 356

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 14Figure 72 · Main Developments of the German Power System Between 2010 and 2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 362
Figure 73 · Age Distribution of the Swiss Nuclear Fleet  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 373
Figure 74 · Age Distribution of the Russian Nuclear Fleet  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 388

TABLE OF TABLES
Table 1 - Nuclear Reactors “Under Construction” (as of 1 July 2021) . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 52
Table 2 – Duration from Construction Start to Grid Connection 2011–2020  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 56
Table 3 - Official Reactor Closures Post-3/11 in Japan (as of 1 July 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .118
Table 4 – Status of Nuclear Reactor Fleet in South Korea (with scheduled closure dates) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 126
Table 5 – Expected Closure Dates of U.K. Nuclear Reactor Fleet – As of 1 July 2021 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .135
Table 6 – 19 Early-Retirements for U.S. Reactors 2009–2025  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 166
Table 7 – Thyroid Cancers Identified in the Fukushima Prefectural Health Management Survey . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 184
Table 8 – Summary of Government Estimates of Fukushima Disaster Costs 2012–2021 (in US$2021 Billion)  .  .  .  .  .  . 192
Table 9 – Government Cost Sharing Scheme as of 2016 (in percent) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 192
Table 10 – JCER Estimates (2017) versus Government Estimate (2016) (in US$2021 billion)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 193
Table 11 – Updated JCER’s Estimate (2019) and Original Estimate (2017)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 194
Table 12 – Overview of Reactor Decommissioning Worldwide (as of July 2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 236
Table 13 – Decommissioned Reactors in Germany (as of May 2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 243
Table 14 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in Germany (as of May 2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 245
Table 15 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in the U.S. (as of May 2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 247
Table 16 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in France (as of May 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 254
Table 17 – Selection of Indirect Climate-Driven Effects Disrupting Nuclear Power Plant Operation .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 316
Table 18 – Causes for Outages and Generation Reductions at French Nuclear Fleet in 2019 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 320
Table 19 – Status of Canadian Nuclear Fleet - PLEX and Expected Closures  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 347
Table 20 – Belgian Nuclear Fleet (as of 1 July 2021)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 357
Table 21 – Legal Closure Dates for German Nuclear Reactors 2011–2022 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 363
Table 22 – Status of Japanese Nuclear Reactor Fleet (as of 1 July 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 392
Table 23 – Status of Nuclear Power in the World (as of 1 July 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 394
Table 24 – Nuclear Reactors in the World “Under Construction” (as of 1 July 2021) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 395

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 15

FOREWORD

By Naoto KAN, Former Prime Minister of JapanTen years have now passed since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, a disaster on a scalesurpassing even that of Chernobyl. The reactors in Units 1 to 3 suffered not only meltdowns,
but also melt-through of the nuclear fuel, while the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 came close toevaporating entirely. Had this come to pass, it would have necessitated the evacuation of allresidents within a radius of 250 kilometers – an area including the metropolis of Tokyo, theconsequences of which would have been unimaginable.
Thanks to the selfless front-line work of TEPCO employees, members of the Japan Self-Defense
Force, firefighters, and the police, and with vital assistance from the USA and other countries,
we were able to avoid the worst-case scenario. I would like to take this opportunity to again
express my sincere gratitude to all those to whom we are so deeply indebted.
As Prime Minister of Japan at the time of the disaster, I now believe that the time has come forJapan and the world to end its reliance on nuclear power. To this end, I am currently involved
with various projects, working alongside my like-minded predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.
The global nuclear power situation has changed greatly in the 35 years since the Chernobyl
disaster, and even in the 10 years since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster began. New nuclear
construction projects are few and far-between, even in heavily-reliant countries such as France
and the USA, while the number of operational reactors is in decline. On the other hand, somecountries, notably China, are actively pushing ahead with the construction of new nuclear
power plants. However, in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, construction costs havedoubled or even tripled, and the number of new plants under construction remains limited.
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) is amongst the most reliable data resources
available on the subject and allows for an impartial and comprehensive understanding of thecurrent status of nuclear power around the world. It is an invaluable tool when it comes toobjectively assessing the situation faced by Japan’s own nuclear power industry.
While Japan’s power companies are still pushing to restart their existing reactors, the safety
standards that must be met in order for this to happen are becoming ever-more stringent.
Combined with the fact that no new facilities have entered service since the Fukushima Daiichi
accident, the upshot of this is that no more than ten reactors are currently operational in Japan.
Japan is looking for ways to reduce its reliance on fossil fuel-based power generation as partof the fight against climate change. However, the current Japanese administration remains
committed to including nuclear power in its projections. For my part, I am doing my best to
persuade the Diet [the Japanese Parliament] that Japan’s power needs can be fully met byrenewable energy sources, without the need to fall back on nuclear.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Specifically, I am pushing for the large-scale rollout of solar power generation that shares spacewith agricultural land. This concept of “solar sharing” envisages installing solar panels threemeters above the ground while continuing to use the farmland below.* The Japanese Ministryof Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) refers to such solar sharing schemes as “farmtype solar generation”. This approach enables solar power generation to be combined withfood production. In principle, implementing such farm-type solar generation over just half ofJapan’s agricultural land area would provide enough electricity to meet Japan’s entire power
requirements. The MAFF is now showing enthusiasm for this concept.
Only 200 years ago, the energy consumed in Japan’s towns and cities was produced in the
countryside in the form of firewood and charcoal. Over the past 200 years, our major sourcesof energy have transitioned through coal, oil, and nuclear technology. The rise of renewableenergy in the form of farm-type solar schemes would bring energy production back to thecountryside where it began.
Around once a year, I still visit the remains of the Fukushima Daiichi site. Even though ten
years have passed, progress in the decommissioning process remains frustratingly slow, driving
home to me the importance of avoiding any repeat of such an event. The large quantities ofradioactive debris that remain within the stricken reactors continue to release alarming levelsof radiation. We already know from the example of Chernobyl that the timescale needed forthis nuclear waste to drop to safe radioactivity levels will be measured in terms of centuries.
It is my wish that the WNISR will reach an ever-increasing audience of people around theworld as they switch their focus to the nuclear industry.

* For details and examples refer to Fraunhofer ISE, “Agrivoltaics: Opportunities for Agriculture and Energy Transition”, Undated,
see https://agri-pv.org/en/.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 17

KEY INSIGHTS
Capacity Up,
Production Down
P China passes France and becomes

China Continues to Dominate
Domestic Nuclear Development…
On a Lower Level

P As of mid-2021, 33 countries operated 415

P Nuclear generation in China increased by 4.4 percent,Number 2 in the World.

nuclear reactors, up seven units compared
to mid-2020—but still below mid-2019 and
23 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438.
P In 2020, globally, five reactors started up
including first ones in Belarus and UAE –eight less than scheduled as of mid-2019.
Six units closed.
P The total operating nuclear capacity
increased by 1.9 percent from one year
earlier to reach 369 GW as of mid-2021, a
new mid-year peak just above the record of
367 GW in 2006.
P In 2020, nuclear power generation
decreased—for the first time since 2012—by
over 100 TWh or more than the individual
national production of 28 of the 33 nuclear
countries.
P Excluding China, nuclear power
generation dropped to the lowest level
since 1995. The nuclear share in theelectricity mix in France dropped to thelowest level since 1985.
P For the first time, China generated
more nuclear electricity than France andbecomes the second largest nuclear
generator in the world behind the UnitedStates.
P The mean age of the world’s nuclear fleet
has increased steadily since 1984 and now
stands at about 31 years with one in fiveunits reaching 41 years or more.
P Nuclear energy’s share of global grosselectricity generation continues its slow
but steady decline from a peak of 17.5
percent in 1996 with a share of 10.1 percent
in 2020.

the lowest growth rate since 2009.

P One third or 18 of the 53 units listed underconstruction in the world as of mid-2021 are in China.
The global total remains well below the 69 units at theend of 2013.
P In 2020, construction began on five reactors globally
including four in China and one in Turkey.
P China General Nuclear Corp. (CGN) abandoned
nuclear export ambitions entirely.
P China missed its 5-Year nuclear targets of 58 GW
installed and 30 GW under construction but expanded
wind power capacity by over 70 GW and solar by almost
50 GW in 2020 alone.
P Russia is involved in 17 of the 53 construction
projects in 8 of the 17 countries building

Chernobyl
35 Years After the Disaster Began
P Most of the 6,800 thyroid-cancer patients of the first
20 years survived but at a high price.

P Food contamination persists in large areas of Europe,e.g. in Germany exceeding legal limits.

P A New Safe Confinement (NSC), an arch-like structure,
covers Unit 4 since November 2016.

P Dismantling of Units 1–3, undamaged in 1986, is totake at least until 2065.

P Visitors to the Chernobyl site—the Ukrainian

government seeks UN World Heritage status—wentfrom 1,000 in 2004 to 200,000 in 2019.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Fukushima Status Report
Ten Years After
Onsite. The highly controversial plan
to release more than 1 million m³ ofcontaminated water into the ocean isconditioned on re-processing at least
70 percent of the water and the dilution of
all of it by a factor of 100. The operation
would take at least three decades.
Health. As of July 2021, 218 persons—children at the time of exposure—werediagnosed with thyroid cancer. The numberof cases is several dozen times higher than
expected.
P The cancer incidence amongst residents
clearly increases with the level ofenvironmental contamination. No healthsurvey on any group of workers has beenreleased.
P In total, the number of officiallyrecognized “disaster-related deaths”
following evacuation in the prefecturesof Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi reached
3,717, of which almost two thirds inFukushima. That is very high, considering
its share of deaths due to earthquake andtsunami was only 10 percent.
Costs. The Japanese government released
a new cost estimate of the disaster
tripling a 2012-estimate and reaching
US$2021223.1 billion. An independent
assessment established a range of US$322–
758 billion largely depending on the kind ofwater and waste treatment and disposal.
Judicial. Numerous legal cases have been
filed and many are ongoing including alawsuit to clarify the civil liability of TEPCO
executives for the Fukushima disaster.
P Lawsuits have been filed against all
operating reactors and restart attempts
by nuclear operators except for one.
As of April 2021, there have been eight
court decisions that have suspended theoperation of nuclear power plants.

| 18

Many Construction Delays Worsened
Construction Time of Latest Reactors
Improved
P At least 31 of the 53 units under construction are behindschedule; 13 have reported increased delays and four have had
documented delays for the first time over the past year.
P In 10 cases (19 percent), first construction starts date backa decade or more, including two units that had construction
starts 36 years ago and one unit that goes back 45 years.

Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy
P The nuclear sector appears to have a problem of multiple

forms of criminal activities.
P Some problems date back decades or have been ongoingfor decades. Organized-crime organizations in Japan havebeen supplying workers to nuclear sites for over a decade.
P Serious insider sabotage has occured in major nuclear
countries (e.g. Belgium) in recent years.
P Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions
Index rates half of the 35 countries operating or constructing
nuclear power plants on their territory below 50 out of 100.
P In the Bribery Payers Index, seven out of the ten worst
rated countries amongst a total of 28 surveyed operate or arebuilding nuclear power plants on their territory.

Renewables Continue to Thrive
P Total investment in new-renewable electricity exceeded

US$300 billion again, 17 times the reported global investment
decisions for nuclear power.
P Renewables proved highly resilient against the global
pandemic and yet another record 256 GW of non-hydrorenewables were added to the world’s power grids in 2020.
Wind added 111 GW and solar 127 GW. Nuclear power added a
net 0.4 GW (startups vs. closures).
P Since 2009, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar
dropped by 90 percent, wind by 70 percent, while nuclear
increased by 33 percent.
P In the European Union, renewables for the first time
overtook fossil fuels to become the primary source ofpower in 2020 which is also the first year that non-hydrorenewables generated more power than nuclear reactors.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AND CONCLUSIONSThe World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 (WNISR2021) provides a comprehensive
overview of nuclear power plant data, including information on age, operation, production, andconstruction of reactors. As 2021 is the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushimadisaster in Japan, this year’s report analyzes in more detail the onsite/offsite status, including
the issues of contaminated water and waste management, health consequences, cost estimatesand legal cases. A dedicated chapter assesses the lasting impacts of the Chernobyl accident inUkraine 35 years later.
As the world continues to struggle with a global pandemic, record temperatures, wildfires,flooding, and other extreme weather events, WNISR2021 presents a first look at Nuclear Powerand Climate Change Resilience including a case study on France.
WNISR has reported for years about irregularities, fraud, counterfeiting, corruption, and othercriminal activities in the nuclear sector. WNISR2021 has, for the first time, dedicated an entire
chapter to Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy documenting multiple criminal activities
associated with nuclear power in many countries.
The WNISR assesses the status of new-build programs in the 33 nuclear countries (as of
mid-2021) as well as in potential newcomer countries. WNISR2021 includes sections on ten
Focus Countries representing about two-thirds of the global fleet and four of the five largest
nuclear power producers. The Decommissioning Status Report 2021 provides an overview
of the current state of nuclear reactors that have been permanently closed. The chapter on
Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment offers comparative data on investment,
capacity, and generation from nuclear, wind and solar energy, as well as other renewables
around the world. Finally, Annex 1 presents overviews of nuclear power in the countries notcovered in the Focus Countries sections.

REACTOR STARTUPS & CLOSURES
Startups. WNISR2019 noted 13 reactors scheduled for startup in 2020; only three of theseunits did so, while the other 10 were delayed at least into 2021. Two additional reactors started
up that were not on the list. Four units were commissioned in the first half of 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted some of the commissioning schedules.
Closures.1 Six units were closed in 2020, two each in France and in the U.S., and one each in
Russia and Sweden. In the first half of 2021, two units were closed, in Taiwan and in the U.S.
Over the two decades 2001–2020, there were 95 startups and 98 closures in the world. As there
were 47 startups and no closures in China over the period, the 98 closures outside China were
only matched by 48 startups, a drastic decline by 50 units over the period.

1 - WNISR accounts for closures in the respective years of last electricity generation and adjusts statistics retroactively if units have notgenerated power in the year in review.

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OPERATION & CONSTRUCTION DATA

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2

Reactor Operation and Production. As of 1 July 2021, 33 countries operated 415 nuclear
reactors—excluding Long-Term Outages (LTOs)—up seven units compared to WNISR20203
but still two below mid-2019, three less than in 1989 and 23 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438.
Two countries, Belarus and the United Arab Emirates, started up their first reactors.
A total of 26 units were in LTO, five less than in WNISR2020, of which 24 in Japan and one
each in India and South Korea, all of which are considered operating by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The total operating capacity increased by 1.9 percent from one year earlier to reach a record
369 GW as of mid-2021, just above the previous maximum of 367 GW in 2006. 4
In 2020, nuclear power generation decreased for the first time since 2012 (by 104 TWh or
3.9 percent). Annual nuclear electricity generation declined to 2,553 net terawatt-hours (TWhor billion kilowatt-hours) in 2020, a 3.9 percent drop over the previous year. Outside of China,
nuclear power generation dropped by 5.1 percent to the lowest level since 1995.
For the first time, China generated more nuclear electricity than France.
The “big five” nuclear generating countries—by rank, the United States, China, France, Russia,
and South Korea—generated 72 percent, the top three alone count for 58 percent of all nuclear
electricity in the world in 2020.
Share in Electricity/Energy Mix. Nuclear energy’s share of global gross electricity generation
lost the 0.2-percentage-point increase of 2019 and returned to its slow but steady decline froma peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 with a share of 10.1 percent in 2020.
Nuclear power’s share of global commercial primary energy consumption has remained stablesince 2014 at around 4.3 percent.
Reactor Age. In the absence of major new-build programs, apart from China, the averageage of the world operating nuclear reactor fleet continues to rise, and by mid-2021 reached30.9 years. The mean age of the world’s fleet has been increasing since 1984.
A total of 278 reactors, two-thirds of the world’s operating fleet, have operated for 31 or more
years, including 89—more than one in five—that have operated for 41 years or more; six units
have operated for 51 years or more.
Lifetime Projections. If all currently operating reactors remained on the grid until the end of
their licensed lifetime, including many that already hold authorized lifetime extensions (PLEX
Projection), and all units under construction scheduled to have started up, an additional
123 reactors or 95 GW— one unit or 0.8 GW per month—would have to be started up or
restarted prior to the end of 2030 in order to maintain the status quo. This would mean, inthe current decade, the need to more than double the annual building rate of the past decadefrom 6 to 12. Construction starts are on a declining trend. The required number of new units
2 - See Focus Countries and Annex 1 for a country-by-country overview of reactors in operation and under construction as well as thenuclear share in electricity generation.
3 - Unless otherwise noted, all figures indicated reflect the situation as of 1 July 2021.
4 - All figures are given for nominal net electricity generating capacity. GW stands for gigawatt or thousand megawatts.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 might be even higher because many reactors are being shut down long before their licenses are
terminated: the mean age at closure of the 23 units taken off the grids between 2016 and 2020
was 42.6 years.
Construction. Seventeen countries are currently building nuclear power plants. As of
1 July 2021, 53 reactors were under construction—one more than WNISR reported for mid2020,
but 16 fewer than in 2013—of which 18 are in China with with a total capacity of 17 GW.
Total capacity under construction in the world increased by 0.5 GW to 54 GW. The current
average time since work started at the 53 units under construction is 7 years compared
to 7.3 years one year ago and 6.2 years as of mid-2017. Many units are still years away fromcompletion.
ɆɆ All reactors under construction in at least 12 of the 17 countries have experienced, mostly
year-long, delays. At least 31 of the building projects are delayed.
ɆɆ Of the 31 reactors clearly documented as behind schedule, at least 13 have reported increased
delays and four have reported new delays over the past year.
ɆɆ Thirteen reactors were scheduled for startup during 2020, but only five did.
ɆɆ Construction starts of two projects date back 36 years. Firstly, Mochovce-3 and -4 in
Slovakia, where their startup has been further delayed, currently to late 2021 and 2023
respectively. Secondly, Bushehr-2 originally started construction in 1976, 45 years ago,and resumed construction in 2019 after a 40-year-long suspension. Grid connection iscurrently scheduled for 2024.
ɆɆ Five additional reactors have been listed as “under construction” for a decade or more:
the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) and Kakrapar-4 in India, Olkiluoto-3 (OL3) inFinland, Shimane-3 in Japan, and Flamanville-3 (FL3) in France. The Finnish project has
been further delayed this year, grid connections of the French and Indian units are likely
to be postponed again, and the Japanese reactor does not even have a provisional startup
date.
ɆɆ Ten countries completed 63 reactors—with 37 in China—over the past decade, with anaverage time between construction start and grid connection of 10 years.

CONSTRUCTION STARTS & NEW-BUILD ISSUES
Construction Starts. In 2020, construction began on five reactors—four in China and one in
Turkey—and in the first half of 2021 on six units, of which three in China. This compares to 15
construction starts in 2010. Construction starts peaked in 1976 at 44.
Over the decade 2011–2020, construction began on 57 reactors in the world, of which three havebeen abandoned. As of mid-2021, only 15 have started up, while 39 remain under construction.
Construction Cancellations. Between 1970 and mid-2021, a total of 93 or one in eight of a
total of 783 constructions were abandoned or suspended in 19 countries at various stages ofadvancement.

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FOCUS COUNTRIESThe following ten Focus Countries covered in depth in this report represent almost one thirdof the nuclear countries hosting about two-thirds of the global reactor fleet. Key facts for year
2020:
Belarus. On 3 November 2020, the country connected its first reactor Belarusian-1 at Ostrovets
to the grid and became the 33rd country operating nuclear power plants. The plant is highly
controversial amongst neighboring countries, and the European Commission has called forsafety upgrades.
China. Nuclear power generation grew by 4.4 percent in 2020, the lowest annual growth ratesince 2009, but China overtook France as the second largest nuclear generator in the world
nevertheless.
Finland. The Olkiluoto-3 EPR project was delayed again, this time “due to extension of
turbine overhaul”. According to an announcement from August 2021, “regular production ofelectricity” will not happen before June 2022, 13 years after the original planned startup date.5
France. Nuclear plants generated almost 12 percent less power than in 2019, representing
67 percent of the country’s electricity, the lowest share since 1985. Outages at zero capacity
cumulated 6,475 reactor-days or almost one third of the year per reactor on average. The
Flamanville-3 EPR project was delayed again and is now scheduled for startup at mid-2023.
Meanwhile, as of the end of 2020, the national utility EDF’s competitors had captured half ofthe commercial customers and 26 percent of the residential clients.
India. Kakrapar-3 eventually started operating in January 2021 after over 10 years ofconstruction. Nuclear plants generate 3 percent of the country’s electricity. Solar plants andwind turbines each generate more power than nuclear plants. Both technologies together
generate three times as much electricity as nuclear plants.
Japan. Nuclear plants generated 5 percent of the electricity in the country, down from
7.5 percent in 2019. As of mid-2021, ten reactors had restarted at some point but hardly produced
simultaneously. One returned to LTO status. For six weeks in November-December 2020, only
one unit was operating.
South Korea. For the second year in a row, nuclear power output increased by almost
10 percent following a significant decline in the years after 2015 and supplied 29.6 percent of
the country’s electricity. According to the ninth energy plan, the country will reduce nuclear’srole to providing just 10 percent of power by 2034. However, that policy could be overturned
following the next elections.
Taiwan. Another reactor was closed in July 2021, and the remaining three are to be closed
by 2025. With the reelection in 2020 of President Tsai Ing-wen, the phaseout policy has been
maintained. Nuclear’s share in electricity generation has already declined from 41 percent 1988
to 13 percent in 2020.
5 - TVO, “The regular electricity production of OL3 EPR will be postponed due to extension of turbine
overhaul”, 20 August 2021, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/
theregularelectricityproductionofol3eprwillbepostponedduetoextensionofturbineoverhaul.html, accessed 23 August 2021. Just as one
year earlier, this latest announcement happened after the editorial deadline for the main body of this report.

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United Kingdom. Nuclear generation decreased another 11 percent while renewable power
generation increased by 11 percent. Two reactors in LTO were closed. Four more units areslated for closure before mid-July 2022. The fleet’s aging units, over 37 years on average, arestruggling with many technical issues, in particular irreparable damage to moderator graphite
bricks leading to lengthy outages of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). The projectedstartup of Unit 1 of Hinkley Point C has been delayed to mid-2026 and the cost estimate raised
again.
United States. The nuclear fleet continues to age, with a mid-2021 average of 40.7 years,
exceeding 40 years for the first time. Nuclear units have increasing difficulties to compete in
the market. State subsidies have been granted to four uneconomic nuclear plants to avoid their“early closure”. Following the revelation of an unprecedented corruption scheme in Ohio, the“bailouts” of four reactors are likely to be reversed. Many other units remain threatened withearly closure for economic reasons. The former CEO of nuclear utility SCANA pleaded guilty toconspiracy fraud charges involving a cover-up of financial problems with the now abandoned
V.C. Summer construction project. Westinghouse’s most senior executive managing the project
was charged with the felony offence of lying to the FBI over his role in the scandal.

FUKUSHIMA STATUS REPORT – TEN YEARS AFTER
Ten years have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident (Fukushima
accident) began, triggered by the East Japan Great Earthquake on 11 March 2011 (referred to as
3/11 throughout the report) and subsequent events.
This anniversary edition goes beyond the traditional overview of onsite and offsite challenges
and provides dedicated sections to the complex issue of health effects, cost assessments andjudicial decisions on the responsibilities of operator and the state for the disaster, and on theconditions of reactor restarts.

Overview of Onsite and Offsite Challenges
Onsite Challenges
Spent Fuel Removal from the pool of Unit 3 was completed in February 2021. Units 1 and 2
have not gone beyond the preparatory stage.
Fuel Debris Removal, planned to start with Unit 2 by 2021, has been delayed by “about one
year due to the spread of COVID-19”.
Contaminated Water Management. Water injection continues to cool the fuel debris ofUnits 1–3. Highly contaminated water runs out of the cracked containments into the basements
where it mixes with water that has penetrated the basements from an underground river. The
commissioning of a bypass system and the pumping of groundwater had reduced the influx ofwater from around 400 m3/day to about 170 m3/day. However, in FY2019, pumped contaminatedwater increased again to 180 m3/day, and to 228 m3/day as of mid-2021. An equivalent amountof water is partially decontaminated and stored in 1,000‑m3 tanks. Thus, a new tank is needed| 23

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 every 4.5 days. The storage capacity onsite of 1.4 million m3 is expected to be saturated by
the end of 2022. Plans to release the contaminated water into the ocean are widely contested,
including overseas. If implemented, at least about 70 percent of the water has to be processedagain, and all of it must be diluted by a factor of 100. The operation would take at least three
decades.
Worker Health. As of February 2021, there were close to 7,000 workers involved indecommissioning work on-site, 86 percent of whom were subcontractors; only the remaining
14 percent worked for Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

Offsite Challenges
Amongst the offsite issues are the future of tens of thousands of evacuees, food contamination,and the management of decontamination wastes. Separate sections are dedicated to healthconsequences, legal issues, and cost assessments of the Fukushima disaster.
Evacuees. As of April 2021, about 35,500 Fukushima Prefecture residents—not including “selfevacuees”—were still officially designated evacuees. According to the Prefecture, the number
peaked just under 165,000 in May 2012. The government intends to continue the lifting ofrestriction orders for affected municipalities. However, according to a recent survey, only
2.5 percent of the people returned to Okuma Town and 9.2 percent to Tomioka Town.
Food Contamination. According to official statistics, among 54,412 samples taken in the first
11 months of FY 2020 (five times less than in FY2019), a total of only 127 food items wereidentified as being contaminated beyond legal limits. As of March 2021, post-3/11 import
restrictions remain in place in 14 countries/regions (six less than a year earlier), including the
E.U.
Decontamination. The contaminated soil in the temporary storage area in Fukushima
Prefecture is currently being transferred to intermediate storage facilities in eight areas. As of
April 2021, around 76 percent of the total amount of 14 million m3 had been shipped. The soil
is to be processed through various stages of volume reduction before being retransported to a
final repository.

Health Effects
In the immediate aftermath of 3/11, the Japanese government increased the public exposure
dose limit by a factor of 20 from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year. In March 2017, the government
terminated housing support for evacuees from outside specific evacuation zones to encourage
residents to return to (what is left of) their homes.
The Fukushima accidents did not lead to cases of acute radiation deaths but to lower-level
radiation exposure of large numbers of people as well as several thousand casualties fromindirect effects following evacuation.
Thyroid Radiation Dosimetry and Potassium Iodine. According to the results of the bodysurface screenings, at least 1,000 evacuees received dose levels at the thyroid exceeding
100 millisievert that should have led to decontamination and intake of potassium iodine.

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However, this did not happen. Instructions by the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) for
iodine distribution got lost and only about 10,000 people took iodine on the initiative of theheads of four towns.
Thyroid Examination Program. About 380,000 children at the age of 18 or younger(including in utero) at the time of the accidents are eligible for the program. As of July 2021,
a total of 260 malignant or suspected malignant cases were detected: 219 underwent surgery,and 218 were diagnosed as cancer. The number of cases is several dozen times higher thanusual. In addition, an NGO revealed that there are at least 19 additional, unreported thyroid
cancer cases and possibly twice as many which would mean that one in eight cases had notbeen included in the official results.
Causal Relationship Between Thyroid Dose and Cancer Incidence. Measurements ofchildren’s thyroid doses started only two weeks after the release (iodine-131 has a half-lifeof eight days). Only about 1,000 children were measured at a distance beyond 30 kilometerswith high environmental contamination. The cancer incidence clearly increases with thelevel of environmental contamination. Exposure levels were estimated and segmented by
the Oversight Committee on the basis of aircraft measurements in the evacuation zone andthree regions outside. The causal relationship that is clearly visible when the exposure doses
are segmented by contaminated area incorrectly seems to disappear when the doses weresegmented according to the UNSCEAR estimate based on the calculated sum of external andinternal exposure for two different age groups.
Other Cancer Cases and Other Disaster Related Deaths. While mortality rates decreased
and morbidity rates have remained flat or decreased in nine other prefectures, incidence rates
in Fukushima Prefecture seem to be on the rise since 2012 for thyroid, cervical, prostate, andbreast cancer. No increase in congenital anomalies have been reported. Deaths from heart
attack increased by 10-20 percent in Fukushima Prefecture in 2011 for both men and women in
the age groups of 40-69, and 70 and over. In total, the number of officially recognized “disaster
related deaths”6 following evacuation in the prefectures of Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi
reached 3,717 of which almost two thirds in Fukushima. That is very high, considering its shareof deaths due to earthquake and tsunami was only 10 percent.
Health Issues of Nuclear Power Plant Workers. Amongst the almost 25,000 workers who
have worked onsite in the six months following 3/11, the maximum documented exposure
dose was 679 mSv, and 174 workers (0.7 percent) are documented to have been exposed tomore than 100 mSv. The average exposure dose was 12.4 mSv. Reliability of these values ishighly questionable as, at least for two months, the doses were only measured in groups dueto the lack of individual dosimeters. In addition to the radiological impact of the ongoing
decommissioning work, workers are exposed during handling, shipment and storage of
millions of cubic meters of contaminated soil. No health survey on any group of workers has
been released over the past decade.

6 - These include amongst others suicides, worsening of chronic diseases due to reduced access to medical care (loss of hospitalfunctions, difficulty in visiting hospitals), health impairment due to prolonged and severe evacuation environment and loss of
livelihood.

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Cost Estimates
Ten years after 3/11, disaster response remains decades away from completing the essential
clean-up and mitigation tasks. Cost estimates are therefore essentially hypothetical. However,
the government has recently offered an updated estimate that can be compared to anindependent assessment by the Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER), an establishedindependent economic think tank.
Government Estimates for 3/11 disaster-related costs covering decommissioning,decontamination, and compensation rose from US$202174.3 billion in 2012 to US$2021223.1 billion
in 2021. Decommissioning increased by a factor of five to US$202175 billion and compensation
by 26 percent to US$202174 billion. Decontamination, not even factored into the first estimate,
represents US$202152.5 billion and a new position for “others” comes in with US$202121.6 billion.
JCER Estimates released in 2019 range from US$322 billion to US$758 billion covering inthree scenarios decontamination with US$186 billion and compensation with US$96 billion
while decommissioning costs vary from US$40 billion (if delayed to 2050, not including post2050 costs) to US$476 billion. The range of decommissioning costs largely depends on thequantity and type of contaminated water treatment with the upper number including tritium
removal.
The biggest difference between the government and JCER estimates comes from the fact thatthe official estimate does not include final disposal costs for radioactive waste generated bydecommissioning and decontamination.

Judicial Decisions on Damages and Criminal
Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear Accidents
Over the past decade, many court cases have been filed by citizens around nuclear power issues.
The most significant lawsuits include attempts to establish a link between the responsibilities
for the disaster and complaints filed against Fukushima owner-operator Tokyo Electric Power
Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese Government. In addition, cases have been filed against
all operating reactors and restart attempts by nuclear operators except for one (Higashidori).
Government Responsibility. Judicial decisions are divided: the September 2020 Sendai
High-Court decision and the February 2021 Tokyo High-Court decision acknowledged
government responsibility while a separate February 2021 Tokyo High-Court decision rejected
the responsibility of the state. All three of these cases have been appealed, and the Supreme
Court’s decisions are expected to be issued within the coming year.
TEPCO Criminal Case. In September 2019, the Tokyo District Court acquitted three TEPCO
executives from criminal responsibility for manslaughter through the Fukushima disaster.
TEPCO Civil Liability Case. The TEPCO shareholder representative lawsuit to clarify thecivil liability of TEPCO executives for the Fukushima disaster is still underway.
Lawsuits Against Reactor Operation and Restarts. As of April 2021, there have been eight
court decisions that have accepted the opinions of plaintiffs and suspended the operation of
nuclear power plants, including the following:| 26

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ In April 2015, the Fukui District Court issued a provisional injunction order against theoperation of Takahama Units 3 and 4, thereby forcing the shutdown of actually operating
reactors.
ɆɆ In December 2017, the Hiroshima High Court, presided by Judge Tomoyuki Nonoue, issued
a provisional injunction against the operation of Unit 3 of the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant,
for a limited nine-month period.
ɆɆ In January 2020, the Hiroshima High Court granted an injunction against the operation of
the Ikata nuclear power plant.
ɆɆ In December 2020, the Osaka District Court ruled to revoke the license for the modificationof the installation of Units 3 and 4 of the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant. This was the first timesince 3/11 that residents’ claims have been accepted in an administrative lawsuit.
ɆɆ In March 2021, the Mito District Court issued an injunction against the restart of the Tokai
Daini nuclear power plant—directly impacted by 3/11—for the first time, on the grounds ofa missing credible evacuation plan.

CHERNOBYL – 35 YEARS AFTER
THE DISASTER BEGAN
Thirty-five years ago, on 26 April 1986, the world witnessed its worst nuclear power plant
accident. Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant experienced a critical power excursion.
Within seconds, nominal energy output of the reactor core surged by a factor of more than 100,
followed by a steam and then a hydrogen explosion that tore through the roof of the reactor
building. About 40 percent of European territory has been contaminated, potentially affectingsome 400 million people. To date, in some regions, radioactivity levels in various food stuffs
remain above legal limits. Nevertheless, much has changed in three and a half decades.

Offsite Challenges
ɆɆ The death toll of the disaster remains controversial. Prior to 2005 only some 50 deaths
were directly attributed to the accident. In 2006, a WHO-IAEA study estimated9,000 excess cancer deaths. U.S. nuclear physicist Richard Garwin estimated 24,000 andother independent experts 40,000 excess cancers over the coming 50 years. Russian andBelarussian scientists claimed that Chernobyl’s death toll from radiation-related diseases
would even surpass 200,000 in Europe and approach 20,000 in the rest of the world.
ɆɆ The health detriments obviously do not all entail death. Most of the 6,800 thyroidcancer patients in the first 20 years following the accident survived but suffered physicaland psychological harm. There are contradicting studies about transgenerational effects.
ɆɆ Abortions sky-rocketed in the aftermath of the accident. The IAEA estimated thatbetween 100,000 and 200,000 abortions were related to Chernobyl radiation concerns in
the year following the accident in Western Europe alone.
ɆɆ Psychological trauma caused by the disaster, resettlement, loss of community andlivelihood, resulted in significantly higher rates of mental illness, including depression,anxiety, and substance abuse. There is also evidence of direct neuropsychiatric effects ofionizing radiation on the brain. In 2018, the Ukrainian government reported estimates| 27

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 that mental illness was about twice as prevalent and by some estimates suicide rates are
as much as 20 times higher among the Chernobyl liquidators compared to the general
population. In Ukraine, 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster began, some 83 percentof the population affected by the accident had experienced some form of adverse healthconsequences; 92 percent among liquidators.
ɆɆ Persisting food contamination remains widespread in Europe. In southern Germany,for example, wild game and mushrooms are still found contaminated with caesium-137 toseveral times the legal limits for sales.

Onsite Challenges
ɆɆ A New Safe Confinement (NSC), an arch-like structure, covers Unit 4 since November
2016. The arch is the largest land-based movable structure ever built. The NSC is meant tohermetically seal off Unit 4 from the environment and has a projected lifetime of at least
100 years.
ɆɆ Dismantling of Units 1–3 is estimated to take at least until 2065.
ɆɆ Spent fuel, some 21,000 assemblies or 2,500 tons, from the four Chernobyl units has been
moved from reactor pools to a centralized five-pool interim storage facility. Then, it is tobe transferred to a centralized dry store that received the operating license in April 2021.
ɆɆ Visitors to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—the Ukrainian government seeks UN World
Heritage status for it—went from 1,000 in 2004 to 200,000 in 2019.
ɆɆ Wildlife Refuge? Significant media coverage has been dedicated to the return of wildlife
following the depopulation of the zone; but its abundance has likely been significantly
tempered by radiation effects. Studies across some 30 species, found an unusually high rateof radiation-related genetic mutation and suggest that transgenerational population-wide
effect of radioactive contamination could be significant.
ɆɆ Wildfires, once a rarity, have become more frequent in the exclusion zone, often due toarson, reactivating radionuclides and significantly increasing ambient radioactivity.

NUCLEAR POWER AND CRIMINAL ENERGY
A stunning number of revelations in recent years on irregularities, fraud, counterfeiting,bribery, corruption, sabotage, theft, and other criminal activities in the nuclear industry invarious countries suggest that there is a systemic issue of “criminal energy” in the sector.
While WNISR has reported for years about illegal and criminal practices, WNISR2020
mentions “corrupt” 14 times in connection with corruption cases involving nine countries onfour continents.
This is the first systematic international analysis of the issue within the framework of thisannual report. Although not comprehensive, this analysis offers several noteworthy insights:
ɆɆ Criminal activities in the nuclear sector are not new. Some major scandals date backdecades or have been ongoing for decades.
ɆɆ Organized crime organizations have been supplying workers to nuclear sites—e.g. theYakuza in Japan—for over a decade.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ Serious insider sabotage has hit major nuclear countries in recent years—like a Belgian
nuclear power plant—without ever leading to arrests.
ɆɆ There is no systematic, comprehensive, public database on the issue.
ɆɆ In 2019, the IAEA released a report on cases of counterfeit or fraudulent items in at least
seven countries since at least the 1990s.
ɆɆ In Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index about half of the
35 countries operating or constructing nuclear power plants on their territory rate under
50 out of 100.
ɆɆ In the Bribery Payers Index (BPI, last published in 2011), seven out of the ten worst rated
countries operate or are building nuclear power plants on their territory.
ɆɆ The first part focuses on 14 cases with serious implications (safety, public governance)that came to trial in the period 2010–2020 either involving companies from or having
taken place in the 2020 Top-8 nuclear power fleets (by operating capacity)7 including thefollowing:•

International (Ukraine/Czech Republic), Energoatom/Skoda, October 2020—A
Swiss court sentenced Mykola Martynenko, a former Ukrainian member of parliamentand chair of the energy committee, to a 28-month prison term for aggravated money
laundering through Swiss banks.

•

Japan, KEPCO, September 2019—A Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) internal
investigation revealed that the utility’s President and 19 other employees received cash
and gifts worth US$3 million from former Deputy Mayor Eiji Moriyama who aimed toencourage KEPCO to work with local suppliers he had ties with.

•France, AREVA, 2016—AREVA informed the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN)
about “irregularities in the manufacturing checks” at its Creusot Forge, including“inconsistencies, modifications or omissions in the production files, concerning
manufacturing parameters or test results” for about 400 components fabricatedsince 1969. EDF subsequently identified 2,982 “anomalies” in the manufacturing
documentation related to parts already installed in 58 French reactors.

•

International (Russia/U.S.), Rosatom, 2015—Former President of U.S.-based
Rosatom subsidiary TENAM, Vadim Mikerin, received a 4-year prison sentence forhis participation in a US$2.1-million bribery scheme involving several Americancompanies and Rosatom officials.

•

International (China, South Korea, U.S.), 2012—CEO and five executives of Control
Component Inc. (CCI), an American control valve manufacturer, received up to 5-year
prison sentences each, for making “236 corrupt payments to officers and employeesof state-owned and private companies in thirty-six countries totalling approximately[US]$6.85 million and earned approximately [US]$46.5 million in net profits from thesales related to those corrupt payments.”•

South Korea, November 2012—Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) reported
fraudulent documents on equipment qualification in 60 procurement contracts
involving 7,682 items.

7 - United States, France, China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, Ukraine, and Japan.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ The second part provides a cross-country comparison of events involving sabotage andorganized crime on nuclear power plant sites in Japan, Russia, and the U.S. including:•

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, Japan, October 2014—Yuuki Sagawa, a memberof the Matsuba Kai mob was arrested in 2014 for brokering unlicensed workers to
Fukushima cleanup operations. In May 2012, Makoto Owada, high-ranking memberof Sumiyoshi-kai, the second largest Yakuza group in the country, was arrested for thesame crime.

•

St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, U.S., August 1996—Employees glued backup switches
in a high security area during a labor strike over their working conditions. The month
before, it had been discovered that padlocks and doors had also been glued.

DECOMMISSIONING STATUS REPORTAs more and more nuclear facilities either reach the end of their pre-determined operational
lifetime or close due to deteriorating economic conditions, their decommissioning is becoming
a key challenge. Note that waste management is not part of this decommissioning analysis.
ɆɆ As of mid-2021, 196 reactors were closed, seven more than a year earlier, of which 176 areawaiting or are in various stages of decommissioning including 74 in long-term enclosure.
ɆɆ Only 20 units have been technically fully decommissioned, no change over the situation ayear earlier: 14 in the U.S., five in Germany, and one in Japan. Of these, only 10 have beenreturned to greenfield sites for unrestricted use.
ɆɆ The average duration of the decommissioning process is about 20 years, with a large range
of 6–42 years (both extremes for very small reactors with respectively 22 MW and 17 MW).
ɆɆ The analysis of 11 major nuclear countries shows that progress in decommissioning
projects remains slow: of 169 closed units, 57 are in the “warm-up stage” and only 10 are in
the “hot-zone stage”.
ɆɆ None of the early nuclear states—U.K., France, Russia, and Canada—have fully
decommissioned a single reactor yet.

SMALL MODULAR REACTORS (SMRS)
Following assessments of the development status and prospects of Small Modular Reactors(SMRs) in earlier WNISR editions, this year’s update does not reveal any major advances but
some modest progress.
Argentina. The CAREM-25 project under construction since 2014 is reportedly 58 percent
complete. COVID-19 led to a provisional complete construction stop. Completion shall takeanother three years.
Canada. There is strong federal and provincial government support for the idea to promote
SMRs. The federal Minister of Natural Resource released an action plan aiming at “first units
in operation by the late 2020s”. Various models are being investigated. Two designs (Moltex
SSR-W300, Hotec’s SMR-160) completed Phase 1 review process by the safety authorities withnumerous issues remaining to be solved.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 China. Two 100 MW high-temperature reactor modules have been under construction at
one site since 2012. Startup has been delayed several times and is still planned for 2021, four
years later than scheduled. The module size shall be increased to 600 MW in a second project,which would be twice the 300 MW maximum for the SMR label. Construction of a reactor withanother design called ACP100 is believed to have commenced, but it was never officially report;
according to the promoter, the cost per kilowatt would be two times higher than that of a large
reactor.
India. An Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) design has been under development sincethe 1990s, and its construction start is getting continuously delayed. No major news since
WNISR2019.
Russia. After a construction lasting four times longer than planned, two “floating reactors”
were connected to the grid in December 2019. The costs per unit of generation capacity has
been estimated at about twice as high as that of the most expensive Generation III reactors.
Performance in 2020 was poor with load factors of 29 percent and 16 percent. Construction of
a 300 MW lead-cooled fast reactor got underway.
South Korea. The System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART) has been underdevelopment since 1997. In 2012, the design received approval by the safety authority, but there
have been no orders, because it is not cost-competitive. Saudi-Arabian engineers are assistingin the redesign of a larger model.
United Kingdom. The government to provide up to US$0.5 billion for SMR development inas part of an “Advanced Nuclear Fund”. Rolls-Royce, the only company that has demonstrated
interest, has recently increased the capacity of its pre-design to 470 MW, thus beyond the SMR
size. The general design is to be submitted to the regulator in the second half of 2021.
United States. The Department of Energy (DOE) has funded companies promoting SMR
development. A single design by NuScale has received a final safety evaluation report by
the regulator. However, the capacity of the design has been increased by 25 percent andthe modifications need to be certified by the regulator. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of eightmunicipalities leaves NuScale with less than one ninth of the output of a typical 12-module
plant under tentative contract.
Overall, there are additional delays in development and construction, and no new design
certifications beyond an already outdated NuScale design in the U.S. There are thus no newsigns that of a major breakthrough for SMRs, neither technologically nor commercially.

NUCLEAR POWER VS. RENEWABLE
ENERGY DEPLOYMENT
Renewable energy deployment and generation has far better resisted the impacts of the global
COVID-19 pandemic than the nuclear power sector. In 2020, nuclear power added net 0.4 GW(+startups, -closures) while renewable capacity increased by a record 256 GW (+30 percent);
nuclear production dropped 4 percent while non-hydro renewables increased 13 percent.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Costs. Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis shows that between 2009 and 2020, utilityscale solar costs came down 90 percent and wind 70 percent, while new nuclear costs increased
by 33 percent. The gap has continued to widen between 2019 and 2020.
Investment. In 2020, for the second time in a row, and the fourth time after 2015 and 2017,
the total investment in non-hydro renewable electricity capacity exceeded US$300 billion,
almost 17 times the reported global investment decisions for the construction of nuclear powerof around US$18 billion for 5 GW. Investment in nuclear power is one eighth of the individual
investments in wind (US$142 billion) and solar (US$149 billion).
Installed Capacity. In 2020, wind nearly doubled its annual expansion with 111 GW andsolar‑photovoltaics (PV) added 127 GW (+22.5 percent), both new record levels, largely
contributing to the new global record of 256 GW of non-hydro renewables added to the world’s
power grids. These numbers compare to a net 0.4 GW addition in nuclear power capacity.
Electricity Generation. In 2020, annual growth for global electricity generation from solar
was 21 percent, and 12 percent for wind power, but nuclear generation dropped by 4 percent.
Non-hydro electricity generation outperformed nuclear power production by 16.5 percent.
Low-Carbon Power. Compared to 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was signed, in 2020 anadditional 1,580 TWh of wind power was produced globally and 855 TWh of solar PV electricity,
compared to nuclear’s additional 289 TWh (net). Compared to 2010, thus prior to 3/11, nonhydro renewables generated 2,386 TWh more electricity, hydro 861 TWh more while nuclear
power generated 68 TWh less.
Share in Power Mix. After experiencing the strongest annual growth on record, the share in
power generation from new renewables (excluding hydro) reached 10.7 percent, widening the
gap with nuclear energy’s shrinking share at 10.1 percent.
In China, electricity production of 466 TWh from wind alone again by far exceeded the
366 TWh from nuclear, while solar power is already at 261 TWh. Solar and wind combined
generate twice as much electricity as all nuclear plants put together.
In India, generation from wind and solar individually outpaced nuclear by 50 percent;combined they produced in excess of three times as much electricity as nuclear power plants.
In the European Union, renewables including hydro for the first time overtook fossil fuels to
become the primary source of power in 2020 contributing 38 percent to the mix with fossil
fuels covering 37 percent and nuclear 25 percent. 2020 is also the first year that non-hydrorenewables generated more power than nuclear reactors.
In the United States, nuclear generation declined by 3.6 percent to the lowest level since 2012,
due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and competition from other sources. In contrast,
the U.S. generated a record amount of renewable electricity in 2020, about 12 percent of thetotal vs. 20 percent for nuclear. Wind power output increased by 14 percent in 2020, while thegeneration of solar increased by 22 percent.

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NUCLEAR POWER AND CLIMATECHANGE RESILIENCE
Recent studies have generated evidence that energy generation and services are increasingly
disrupted by climate change through the increase in the variability, intensity, and predictabilityof weather conditions. Power-system resilience can be broadly defined as the ability tocope with, recover from, and minimize the impact of various types of potentially disruptive
developments or events. The special focus chapter on the issue of Nuclear Power and Climate
Change Resilience provides an overview of problems all electricity generating technologies andgrid systems are facing and a case study on France.
ɆɆ The operations of all thermal power plants are most frequently vulnerable to ambient andwater temperature variations. Nuclear plants are especially vulnerable to droughts.
ɆɆ The most vulnerable renewable energy source to climate change is hydropower, whichis expected given the high dependency on water availability. Wind energy output isstrongly dependent on the wind density at given wind turbine sites. Solar energy output
is dependent on the cloudiness and ambient temperature. The efficiency of solar panels
decreases as the ambient temperature increases.
ɆɆ High ambient temperature levels lead to greater transmission and distribution losses.
For every 5°C air temperature-increase, research has found, the capacity of a fully loadedtransmission line would be diminished by an average of 7.5 percent. Wildfires can also
severely impact the grid.
Overview of specific challenges to nuclear facilities. There are two main pathways:
ɆɆ Thermal Disruptions, driven by droughts and heatwaves, include outages that result fromthe limitation on evacuating the thermal power generated within the reactor, triggering
either reduced power output or a full outage at zero capacity.
•

In Europe, temperature extremes are the main contributor to climatic disruptions.
Over the past two decades, heatwaves have frequently forced shutdown or curtailmentof nuclear power reactors, the largest of which were observed in 2003, 2006, 2015 and2018.

ɆɆ Severe Storm Pathway, including outages triggered by violent storms like hurricanes or
typhoons, often accompanied by floods, lightning, etc., that can impact in particular theelectrical power supply systems at the power plant.
•

Nuclear power plants in North America and East Asia, are particularly susceptible tosuffer from cyclone activity.

Indirect climate driven effects, and nuclear facilities other than reactors:
ɆɆ Indirect Climate-Driven Effects impacting nuclear power plant operation include
jellyfish proliferation that can block the inlet of cooling water channels, wildfires that cannecessitate plant evacuation, floods that can cut power supply, road access, and sea level
rise that can lead to the intensification of storms.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ WNISR does not cover fuel chain facilities such as uranium mining, nuclear fuel production,
spent fuel reprocessing, waste management and disposal facilities. However, it should be
noted that all of them are at risk of being affected by climate change induced events.
Case Study France – Historic and Recent Events
ɆɆ First weather-related disruptions of nuclear power production reported as early as 1976. In
August 2003, 10–15 GW or 16–24 percent of total installed nuclear capacity was unavailable
due to high temperatures.
ɆɆ Recent incidents include the unavailability of three out of four 900 MW Blayais reactors
in the Bordeaux region in March 2021 due to an accumulation of foreign matter disabling
their pumping stations (fouling) and a one-month shutdown of the two 1450 MW units
in Chooz at the Belgian border caused by the low level of the Meuse River in August–
September 2020.
Case Study France – Impact on Nuclear Generation 2015–2020
A study by the French transmission system operator RTE analyses the impact of weather on
nuclear power production between 2015 and 2020. The results show:ɆɆ Between 2015 and 2020, weather was responsible for about 4,000 hours of outages atzero power—a loss of 166 reactor-days of production—and an additional 4,000 hours ofderating.
ɆɆ Climate-induced unavailabilities occurred every year: 2016 was the least affected with just18 deratings while 2018 was the worst year with 23 full outages and 103 deratings.
ɆɆ Over the 6-year period, 26 reactors were affected at least once (including both Fessenheim
reactors) and 12 were shutdown (including one Fessenheim unit) at some point.
ɆɆ The cumulated production loss is 8.5 TWh or an average 1.4 TWh per year. This represents
only about 0.4 percent of French annual nuclear production.
ɆɆ The production losses appear to have an increasing trend with the highest loss occurringin 2020 with 3 TWh.
ɆɆ While the absolute production losses appear negligeable, they are difficult to forecast andare often concentrated over a relatively short period of the year. The 2019 heatwave, forexample, impacted nine reactors and lead the loss of 10 percent of the installed nuclear
capacity, which in turn lead to a surge in electricity spot market prices.
ɆɆ Climate-induced unavailabilities over the period were concentrated between July andNovember, and half of the production losses occurred in the September months. The
Chooz site had a 28-day full unavailability in September 2020. September is the monthwith the lowest flow on the Rhône and Meuse rivers and is increasingly exposed to lateheatwaves.
ɆɆ Among the fourteen nuclear sites located inland, nine experienced climatic unavailability
over the period. Three plants lost output in excess of 1 TWh: Chooz (4.4 TWh), Saint Alban(2 TWh) and Bugey (1.1 TWh).
ɆɆ Disruptions can be classified into three broad categories: summer type (caused bytemperature), autumn type (caused by low water flow), and winter type (caused by floods
or storms).

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 •

Summer disruptions are usually short but can touch multiple plants simultaneously
and will almost certainly occur more frequently.

•

Autumn disruptions often stretch over longer periods but remain more localized.
They occur during low flowrate periods when rivers cannot efficiently dilute hotwater discharged from the power plant, making it harder to comply with temperature
regulations.

•

Winter disruptions are due to lower frequency events that can carry higher risks (e.g.
the December 1999 flooding of the Blayais site).

ɆɆ Adaptation options are limited for existing plants. Also, while most adaptation strategies
are based on climate projections, EDF uses extrapolations. Maximum temperatures arecalculated by extending historical observations over a 10-year period. This implicitly
carries a risk of underestimating future temperature variation.
ɆɆ Safety implications of nuclear-climate interactions remain poorly understood, especiallyas nuclear power is being introduced into potentially particularly adverse climate
environments like in the Middle East or Bangladesh for example. Unexpected extreme
weather events could also have particularly detrimental effects if they coincided with an
ongoing nuclear accident.

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INTRODUCTION
Mid-2020, the world had hoped the pandemic would be gone long before year end. Mid-2021, a
growing number of people starts wondering whether they will have to live with COVID-19 overthe long term and adjust with repeated vaccinations.
WNISR2020 provided a first international overview of some of the COVID-19 impacts on
the nuclear industry. Generally speaking, the nuclear industry and safety authorities remainvery confident that the pandemic had limited or no impact on the operating conditions of
their facilities. The Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) told the public that“the safety of nuclear facilities as well as their oversight had been guaranteed at all times”.8
The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) thought that the “level of nuclear safety andradiation protection achieved remained satisfactory”.9 The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)
that represents the industry in the U.S. enthusiastically concluded “the COVID-19 publichealth emergency brought out the best in industry and the NRC [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission]”.10 The industry also points to profound and lasting changes, in particular
the role of telework with the COVID experience having “overturned assumptions about thebenefits and costs of expecting support staff to be onsite”.11 The International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) reported as early as summer 2020 that “the Agency quickly and effectively
adapted to remote working conditions and continued to deliver on its mandate”.12
Surprisingly, as of mid-2021, there is still no comprehensive international assessment ofconsequences of the global pandemic on nuclear safety and security systems. There is no doubtthat while much can be done through telework, there are countless operations, inspections andtraining exercises needing physical presence that were delayed by months or not carried out at
all since the pandemic got underway. This is true for safety and security.
“Thankfully, no major nuclear security incidents have made headlines during this time, but
this should not be considered as evidence that nuclear security systems are operating, and willcontinue to operate, effectively,” three senior academic nuclear security experts concluded in aJune 2021 paper.13 They report that
There has been a surge in cyber security incidents during the pandemic, with cyber criminals
and other actors taking advantage of the move to remote online working. According to a
recent cybercrime assessment by Interpol, the focus of these attacks has altered significantly,

8 - ENSI, “Tätigkeits- und Geschäftsbericht 2020 des ENSI-Rates”, 8 July 2021 (in German), see https://www.ensi.ch/de/wp-content/
uploads/sites/2/2021/07/Taetigkeits_und_Geschaeftsbericht_2020_des_ENSI-Rates.pdf, accessed 20 August 2021.
9 - ASN, “ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2020”, 27 May 2021,
see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/Publications/ASN-s-annual-reports/ASN-Report-on-the-state-of-nuclear-safetyand-radiation-protection-in-France-in-2020, accessed 20 August 2021.
10 - Cheryl Gayheart, Jean Fleming, Jim Slider, “Industry’s COVID Lessons Learned”, Southern Nuclear Operating Company,
Public Service Enterprise Group, Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI Presentation, 21 April 2021, see https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/
webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML21110A707, accessed 20 August 2021.
11 - Ibidem.
12 - IAEA, “The IAEA and the COVID-19 Pandemic”, Reports by the Director General, General Conference, Sixty-Fourth Regular
Session, GC(64)INF4/5/6, 24 August 2020, see https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gc/gc64-inf4-gc64-inf5-gc64-inf6.pdf,
accessed 20 August 2021.
13 - Christopher Hobbs, Nickolas Roth and Daniel Salisbury, “Security Under Strain? Protecting Nuclear Materials During theCoronavirus Pandemic”, The RUSI Journal, Vol. 166, 28 June 2021, see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2021.19
37302, accessed 11 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

switching ‘from individuals and small businesses to major corporations, governments andcritical infrastructure’.14

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) admitted in its March 2021 strategy
paper:We recognise the many threats that face the NDA and its supply chain, from cyber-attacks,
data breaches and Information Technology (IT) system failures to extreme weather
conditions, global pandemics and terrorism. (…).
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic may be considerable, introducing uncertainty into
the timing and duration of the spending review process so that any exercise undertaken
will be set in a radically different fiscal environment and is likely to compound an alreadychallenging situation.15

WNISR2021 does not include an update to the assessment of the impact of the global pandemic
on the nuclear industry, not because it would not be considered important but simply
because of a lack of capacity. However, this edition does look at the question whether there
is a systemic issue of Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy. In addition to this first attempt todescribe typologies of irregularities, fraud, corruption and other criminal activities, various
country chapters provide more detailed information on specific affairs, notably China Focus,
Japan Focus, Annex 1 – Slovakia, and United States Focus.
Criminal conduct is an ongoing concern for the nuclear industry, as for example in the U.S.
in mid-August 2021, there were media headlines like “New criminal charges filed against
Westinghouse official in SC’s [South Carolina’s] nuclear plant failure” calling it “one of thelargest business failures in South Carolina history”.16 The Westinghouse official who oversaw
worldwide construction of nuclear reactors, including the now abandoned V.C. Summer projectin South Carolina, faces “16 felony counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud,and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record” and risks a maximum of 20 years
in prison and a US$5 million fine.17 He was the fourth top manager to plead guilty to a range ofcriminal charges in this affair (see also Guilty Pleas and On-going FBI Investigations Over V.C.
Summer Project).
Almost exactly at the same time, in Japan, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) suspended
its safety screening of Unit 2 at Japan Atomic Power Company’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant inFukui Prefecture after “data tampering was found in documents submitted to the regulator”.18
Reportedly, the data manipulations concerned geological information obtained from a drilling
survey conducted at the plant’s premises. The NRA said it will not license the restart of thereactor until it receives credible data.

14 - Ibidem.
15 - NDA, “Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Strategy effective from March 2021”, UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority,
Corporate Report, 18 March 2021, see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-strategyeffective-from-march-2021, accessed 27 August 2021.
16 - John Monk, “New criminal charges filed against Westinghouse official in SC’s nuclear plant failure”, The State, 19 August 2021,
see https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article253576236.html, accessed 19 August 2021.
17 - Ibidem.
18 - Jiji Press, “Central Japan N-Reactor Screening Halted over Data Tampering”, 18 August 2021,
see https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2021081800646, accessed 22 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 This edition marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima disaster, also
termed 3/11, and the 35 years of the Chernobyl accident. These catastrophes continue to impact
the lives of many people and we were fortunate to be able to count on the contributions by someoutstanding experts on technical challenges, health issues, legal cases, and cost assessments
around these tragic events.
In addition, Naoto Kan, Prime Minister of Japan at the time when the Great East Japan
Earthquake triggered the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, honored WNISR2021 with a
Foreword.
At a time when the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) stressed human responsibility in the climate crisis, it has become clear that
we have passed the point of discussions about whether policy should focus on avoidance oradaptation. Responsible policy strategies will need to address both. The question how energy
technologies fare in this context is of great importance. Following an extensive assessment of
Climate Change and Nuclear Power in WNISR2019, the chapter Nuclear Power and Climate
Change Resilience provides a first look at nuclear’s challenges in this context. A case study on
France illustrates the relative significance and impact of extreme weather events like heat anddrought, heavy rain, and storms.

NUCLEAR POWER AND GREEN TAXONOMY
In July 2020, the European Taxonomy Regulation entered into force.19 The regulation provides
a framework for future investments in the European Union (EU) to further the goals of
the European Green Deal20 that targets no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The EU
is currently debating whether nuclear power should be granted the same access to funding
under the taxonomy criteria—in particular the Do-No-Significant-Harm (DNSH) criteria—asrenewable energies.
The European Commission asked its Joint Research Centre (JRC) to assess the question. The
decision to commission the evaluation from JRC raised eyebrows as the center is directly
involved in nuclear research and operates EU nuclear research facilities in various countries.21
Thus a classical conflict-of-interest situation seemed obvious.
Ten days prior to the release of the JRC report, a coalition of seven European nuclear countries
led by France, including the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia,
released a joint letter to the European Commission stating that “all available zero and low19 - European Parliament and Council of the European Union, “Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation(EU) 2019/2088”, Official Journal of the European Union, 22 June 2020, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/
TXT/?uri=CELEX:32020R0852, accessed 12 August 2021.
20 - See European Commission, “A European Green Deal”, undated, see https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/
european-green-deal_en, accessed 12 August 2021.
21 - “The specific objectives of the JRC’s direct actions under Annex I to Regulation (Euratom) 2018/1563 are to (a) improve
nuclear safety; (b) improve nuclear security; (c) increase excellence in the nuclear science base for standardisation; (d) fosteringknowledge management, education, and training; and (e) support the policy of the Union on nuclear safety and security.”, see
European Commission, “Commission Implementing Decision on the adoption of multi-annual work programmes under Council
Decision 2013/743/EU and Council Regulation (Euratom) 2018/1563, to be carried out by the Joint Research Centre for the period
2019-2020, and amending Commission Implementing Decision C(2018) 1386”, 18 March 2019, see https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/
files/c_2019_1872_f1_commission_implementing_decision_en_v2_p1_1007927.pdf, accessed 21 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 emission technologies” should be “actively supported by the European Union. This is especiallyvalid for nuclear power whose development is one of the primary objectives of the Treaty
establishing the Euratom Community, obliging EU institutions to promote it.”22
In March 2021, the JRC released a 387-page report of which a single sentence has beenabundantly quoted by nuclear industry representatives and the media: “The analyses did notreveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health orto the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in theTaxonomy as activities supporting climate change mitigation.”23
The report has been severely criticized.
The European Commission’s own Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental andEmerging Risks (SCHEER) concluded that
… [JRC’s] overall conclusion of “no evidence of does more harm” is not sufficiently supportedby the information provided within the report…
… the impact [of thermal pollution] has the potential to be greater than described in the JRC
report…
… clearly nuclear energy produces larger quantities of waste than other energy generation
technologies… The SCHEER is of the view that high-level waste storage remains an open
research question, with considerable uncertainties.24

Some SCHEER comments on specific parts of the JRC report are particularly critical. The
section on the impact of radiation on the environment, SCHEER concluded, “does not provide
any useful or detailed information for assessing the impacts”. Some statements were found“simplistic”.
The German Government commissioned a joint assessment of the JRC report by two of its
own nuclear expert organizations that concluded:This expert response finds that the JRC has drawn conclusions that are hard to deduce atnumerous points. Subject areas that are very relevant to the environment have also only beenpresented very briefly or have been ignored. (…)… the problem of disposing of radioactive waste has already been postponed by previous
generations to today’s and it will ‘remain’ a problem for many future generations. The
principle of “no undue burdens for future generations” (pp. 250ff) has therefore alreadybeen (irrevocably) infringed, while the DNSH-hurdle “significant[ly] harm” has also been
infringed.

22 - Letter to Ursula von der Leyen, Frans Timmermans, Mairead McGuinness, Kadri Simson, signed by the Prime Ministers ofCzech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the French President, dated 19 March 2021, see WNN, “Message:
7 EU leaders urge support for nuclear”, 25 March 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Message-Nuclear-is-green-energy,say-7-EU-leaders, accessed 21 August 2021.
23 - JRC, “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‘do no significant harm’ criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852(‘Taxonomy Regulation’)”, JRC Science for Policy Report, European Commission, 19 March 2021, see https://ec.europa.eu/info/
sites/default/files/business_economy_euro/banking_and_finance/documents/210329-jrc-report-nuclear-energy-assessment_en.pdf,
accessed 21 August 2021.
24 - SCHEER, “SCHEER review of the JRC report on Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‘do no significant
harm’ criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (‘Taxonomy Regulation’)”, European Commission, Adopted 29 June 2021,
see https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/business_economy_euro/banking_and_finance/documents/210629-nuclear-energy-jrcreview-scheer-report_en.pdf, accessed 21 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

The JRC Report is therefore incomplete and therefore fails to comprehensively assess thesustainability of using nuclear energy.25

Seven ministers representing the governments of five countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany,
Luxembourg, Spain) complained in a joint letter to the European Commission about “grave
methodological shortcomings”. The JRC report “neglects to address the residual nuclear risk,
assessing only the normal operation of nuclear power plants” and “disregards the life-cycle
approach” as the lack of an effective radioactive waste management solution violates theprinciple of “no undue burdens on future generations”. The governmental statement concludes:
Nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s “do no significant harm”
principle. We therefore urge the European Commission not to jeopardise the courageous
path it has taken towards making the EU the global lead market for sustainable finance.26

Reclaim Finance, a newly established NGO affiliated with Friends of the Earth France,
concluded an assessment of the Taxonomy process by stating:
By planning to include fossil gas and providing a specific process to welcome nuclear throughthe backdoor, the EU is likely to end up with a sustainable Taxonomy that undermines thetransition of the energy sector. (…)
The EU is setting its energy agenda for the decades to come: it is time to sever the ties between
officials and energy lobbies that contribute to untamed global warming or undermine thesustainable transition.27

Nuclear Transparency Watch has requested a round of public participation according to
the Aarhus Convention.28 A public consultation, carried out prior to the release of the JRC
report, had triggered tens of thousands of comments from European citizens. The European
Commission is expected to make a final decision before the end of 2021. WNISR2022 willreport on the outcome.
Meanwhile, the nuclear industry had to absorb a serious blow in the U.K. with nuclear being
officially excluded from the country’s green taxonomy. The 31-page “UK Government Green
Financing Framework” document mentions nuclear power just in one paragraph, under“Exclusions”: “Recognising that many sustainable investors have exclusionary criteria in

25 - BASE, “Expert response to the report by the Joint Research Centre entitled Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect tothe ‘Do No Significant Harm’ criteria in Regulation (EU) 2020/852, the Taxonomy Regulation’”, Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear
Waste Management with support from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), June 2021, see https://www.base.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/BASE/EN/reports/2021-06-30_base-expert-response-jrc-report.pdf.pdf, accessed 21 August 2021.
26 - Svenja Schulze, Leonore Gewessler, Dan Jørgensen et al., Joint-Letter addressed to Commissioners Frans Timmermanns,
Vladis Dombrovskis, Mairead McGuinness, and Virginijus Sinkevičius, Signed by the German Federal Minister for the Environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Austrian Minister for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation
and Technology, Danish Minister for Climate Energy and Utilities, Danish Minister for Industry Business and Financial Affairs,
Luxembourg Minister for the Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for
the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge and Spanish Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for the Economy and Digital
Transformation, undated, see https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/Joint-ministerial-letter_AT_DE_DK_LU_
ES.pdf, accessed 14 August 2021.
27 - Reclaim Finance, “Out with Science, in with Lobbyists: Gas, Nuclear and the EU Taxonomy”, July 2021,
see https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/07/22/abandoning-science-how-the-gas-and-nuclear-lobbies-are-winning-the-eutaxonomy-fight/, accessed 15 August 2021.
28 - Nadja Železnik, Letter to the European Commission, Nuclear Transparency Watch, dated 20 July 2021.

| 40

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 place around nuclear energy, the UK Government will not finance any nuclear energy-related
expenditures under the Framework.”29“AND THE WINNER IS…”
The likely winner of the taxonomy debate in Europe will be renewables that have also showna remarkable resistance to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, the World
Economic Forum stated:
The ongoing COVID‑19 pandemic has put a stop to business as usual, setting off a chainof events disrupting all sectors – including energy. (…) Resilience, in economic, financial,
regulatory and infrastructure terms, is a crucial prerequisite for an effective energy
transition.30

The total investment in non-hydro renewables globally—despite the economic impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic—exceeded US$300 billion in COVID-19-year 2020.31 Significantly,
falling capital costs enabled record volumes of both solar (>130 GW) and wind (>70 GW) to beinstalled despite relatively small increases in investment.
In the meantime, so-called advanced reactors of various designs, including so-called
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), make a lot of noise in the media but their promoters haveprovided little evidence for any implementation scheme before a decade at the very least.
Even staunch industry supporters like William Magwood, Director General of the OECD’s
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in Paris and a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), recently stated: “If these technologies cannot be brought to market … inabout a decade … they may not be relevant to the energy transition.”32 Mark Cooper, Senior
Fellow for Economic Analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law
School, concluded a recent analysis more bluntly:
Small modular reactors appear to be repeating the path of large reactors, with rising costs
and increasing delays. Much of the battle to meet the challenge of climate change will be overbefore even one of these reactors is online.33

Time will be of the essence.

29 - UK Debt Management Office, “UK Government Green Financing Framework”, HM Treasury, UK Government, June 2021,
see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/998127/20210630_UK_
Government_Green_Financing_Framework_Final.pdf, accessed 15 August 2021.
30 - WEF, “Fostering Effective Energy Transition – 2020 edition”, World Economic Forum, May 2020,see http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Fostering_Effective_Energy_Transition_2020_Edition.pdf, accessed 21 August 2021.
31 - BNEF, “Energy Transition Investment Hit $500 Billion in 2020 – For First Time”, BloombergNEF, 19 January 2021,
see https://about.bnef.com/blog/energy-transition-investment-hit-500-billion-in-2020-for-first-time/, accessed 6 June 2021.
32 - Edwin Lyman, “It’s time to cancel the Versatile Test Reactor”, The Hill, 27 July 2021, see https://thehill.com/opinion/energyenvironment/565024-its-time-to-cancel-the-versatile-test-reactor, accessed 28 July 2021.
33 - Mark Cooper, “Building a Least-Cost, Low-Carbon Electricity System with Efficiency, Wind, Solar, & Intelligent Grid Management:
Why Nuclear Subsidies are an Unnecessary Threat to the Transformation”, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law
School, July 2021, see https://www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/Building_a_21st_Century_Electricity_System.pdf,
accessed 21 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 42

GENERAL OVERVIEWWORLDWIDEPRODUCTION AND ROLE OF NUCLEAR POWER
In 2020, the world nuclear fleet generated 2,553 net terawatt-hours (TWh or billion kilowatthours) of electricity 34 , a drop of 104 TWh or 3.9 percent over the previous year (see Figure 1).
This is the first time that nuclear generation declined since post-3/11-year 2012. Without China,
global nuclear power generation decreased by 5.1 percent and reached the lowest level since1995. China for the first time produced more nuclear electricity than France and takes second
place—behind the U.S.—among the top nuclear power generators.
Nuclear energy’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation in 2020 fell slightly
from 10.4 percent to 10.1 percent, significantly below the peak of 17.5 percent in 1996.
With a new record non-hydro renewables’ annual growth, their share in world power generation
grew by 1.4 percentage points to 11.7 percent.35
In a global economic environment depressed by the COVID-19 pandemic, fossil fuelconsumption slumped: oil by 9.7 percent, coal by 4.2 percent, and natural gas by 2.3 percent.
The nuclear commercial primary energy consumption dropped by 4.1 percent, but, due tothe overall decline, its share in global consumption remained stable at 4.3 percent. It has
been around this level since 2014. Hydropower’s primary energy consumption increased, by
1 percent on the global average and by 7.2 percent in the EU. Renewables, including mainly
solar, wind and biofuels, continued their spectacular growth with a 9.7 percent increase in
primary energy—in spite of the global pandemic.36
In 2020, there were eight countries that increased their nuclear share (including the two
newcomer countries Belarus and UAE; see Figure 2)—versus 12 in 2019—nine decreased their
nuclear shares, and 16 remained at a constant level (change of less than 1 percentage point).
Besides the two newcomer countries, four countries (Argentina, China, Pakistan, Russia)
achieved their largest ever nuclear production, as in 2019, two of these countries started up
new units (China and Russia), Argentina’s record was as a result of a full year of operation of areactor that was restarted in 2019 after a four-and-a-half-year outage, and Pakistan increased
productivity after a mediocre year.

34 - If not otherwise noted, all nuclear capacity and electricity generation figures based on International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) online database, see https://prisweb.iaea.org/Home/Pris.asp.
Production figures are net of the plant’s own consumption unless otherwise noted, from https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/
NuclearShareofElectricityGeneration.aspx.
35 - BP, “Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 – 70th edition”, 17 June 2020, see https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/
en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf, accessed 16 July 2021.
36 - Ibidem.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 43Figure 1 · Nuclear Electricity Generation in the World... and China

Nuclear Electricity Production 1985–2020
in the World...

...and in China
and the Rest of the Worldin TWh (net) and Share in Electricity Generation (gross)in TWh (net)

1996
Maximum : 17.5%
Share
in %

2006
Maximum:
2,660 TWh

Nuclear Share
Nuclear Electricity
Production

15

2020
For the first time since 2012,
world nuclear production decreased,by around 3.9%.

2020
Production:
2,553 TWh
Share:
10.1%

China
Rest ofthe World

10

5

5

0

TWh

TWh

2500

2500

2000

2000

1500

1500

1000

1000

500

500

0
1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

2010

2015

Outside of China, it dropped by 5.1%
to the lowest level since 1995.

2020

0

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

0

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with BP, IAEA-PRIS, 202137

The following noteworthy developments for the year 2020 illustrate the continuous volatile
operational situation of the individual national reactor fleets (see country-specific sections fordetails):
ɆɆ Argentina boosted output by 26 percent—the second year in a row with a 20+ percent
increase—after Embalse returned to service following a long refurbishment-outage andAtucha-1 generated more power than in any year over the past 12 years, and despite a badyear for Atucha-2 with a load factor below 40 percent.
ɆɆ Armenia’s single reactor at Medzamor increased generation by almost 26 percent.
ɆɆ Belgium’s nuclear fleet keeps undergoing large variations in generation. Output plunged
by 21 percent after a 52-percent increase in 2019 following a 32-percent plunge in 2018 due
to additional outages for maintenance, repair, and upgrade.
ɆɆ China started up only two new units in 2020, just as in 2019, with nuclear generation
increasing only 4.4 percent, the lowest increase since 2009.
ɆɆ France’s nuclear generation decreased by 12 percent, remaining for the fifth year in a row
below the 400 TWh mark. Output dropped to the lowest level in 27 years (see France Focus).
ɆɆ Germany closed one reactor (Philippsburg-2) at the end of 2019 and the national nuclear
power generation dropped accordingly by 14 percent in 2020.
ɆɆ Japan had restarted nine reactors after all of them were down in 2014. But after a
progressive increase in output, nuclear generation plunged again in 2020, by over
34 percent. A major reason were four reactors that were forced to shut down because they
did not meet the regulator’s deadline for security upgrades.

37 - WNISR for World Nuclear Industry Status Report, BP stands for BP plc.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 44Figure 2 · History of National Nuclear Power Programs

National Nuclear Power Program Startup and Phase-out
End of 2020
33 Active Programs

Cumulated Number of National Programs, as of Year-End,1954–2020
1996-1997
32 Active Programs

Nuclear Power Program Status
As of end of 2020

Phased-out (3)Program Limitation or Phase-out (9)No Active Construction (10)Active Construction (15**)
12/2009

1970
NPT Entry into force

3/1998

3/1987

1954
1

1960
4

1965
10

1970
14

1975
19

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

1980
24

1985
30

1990
30

1995
31

2000
31

2005
31

2010
30

2015
31

BelarusUAE
IranRomania
China
MexicoCzech RepublicSouth Africa
Lithuania
Hungary
BrazilSlovenia
TaiwanUkraineSouth Korea*
Finland
Armenia
Bulgaria
Argentina
Kazakhstan
Slovakia
Pakistan
Switzerland
India
Netherlands
Spain
SwedenJapan***
Italy
Belgium
CanadaGermany
FranceUSA
UK
Russia2020
33 Number ofPrograms

Source: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Notes
This figure only displays countries with operating or once operating reactors.
* Although it has a phaseout policy, South Korea has four reactors under construction as of 1 July 2021.
** Including South Korea listed in the category “Program Limitation or Phase-out”.
*** Japan is counted here among countries with “active construction”—however it is possible that the only project under active construction (Shimane-3) will
be abandoned.

ɆɆ South Korea increased nuclear production by 10 percent—mainly due to a full-year
production of a reactor started up in April 2019—following a 9 percent increase in 2019
and a 10-percent decline in 2018.
ɆɆ South Africa’s nuclear generation declined by 15 percent after a 28-percent increase in2019 and a 30 percent drop in 2018.
ɆɆ Sweden’s nuclear output dropped by 26.5 percent, partly due to the closure of one reactor(Ringhals-2).
ɆɆ The U.K. nuclear generation decreased by another 10.5 percent following a 14 percent
decline in 2019, due to long outages of some of its ageing reactors. Since 2016, annual
production has dropped by 30 percent.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ In the U.S., following the all-time high in 2019, nuclear electricity generation dropped (by2.4 percent) below the 800 TWh mark for the first time since 2015. As four reactors wereclosed in 2019–2020, it is possible that the country has seen “peak nuclear” and will not
get back to earlier production levels.
Similar to previous years, in 2020, the “big five” nuclear generating countries—by rank, theU.S., China, France, Russia and South Korea—generated 72 percent of all nuclear electricity inthe world (see Figure 3, left side).
In 2002, China held position 15, in 2007 it was tenth, before reaching third place in 2016. In
2020—earlier than anticipated due to the mediocre performance of the French fleet—China
became the second largest nuclear generator in the world, a position that France held since theearly 1980s.
In 2020, the top three countries, the U.S., China and France, accounted for 58 percent of global
nuclear production, underscoring the concentration of nuclear power generation in a verysmall number of countries.
In many cases, even where nuclear power generation increased, the addition is not keeping pacewith overall increases in electricity production, leading to a nuclear share below the respective
historic maximum (see Figure 3, right side). Only three countries, the Czech Republic, Pakistan,and Russia reached new historic peak shares of nuclear in their respective power mix, all threesmall increases, +2.1 percentage points for the Czech Republic (reaching a share of 37.3 percent)and +0.5 percentage points for Pakistan (attaining 7.1 percent) and +0.9 percentage point for
Russia (reaching 20.6 percent). China maintained the 4.9 percent share, a maximum it firstreached in 2019.

| 45

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 46

Figure 3 · Nuclear Electricity Generation and Share in Global Power Generation
Nuclear Production in 2019-2020 and Historic Maximumin TWh and Share In Electricity Production
TWh
800

Percentage
600

400

2019

200

0

0

2020
2005
2020

1994

2001

USA

FranceChina

Slovakia

FranceUkraineRussiaHungarySouth Korea

Bulgaria

CanadaBelgium

UkraineSlovenia

Germany

Czech Republic

30

40

50

60
2003

1986
2005
2020

Switzerland

1996

Armenia

2009

1999

UK

FinlandJapan

Sweden

2019

India

South Korea

1999

Belgium

Switzerland

2019

Finland

2019

2019

2018

1986
1996
1987

Spain

1989

Russia2020

Romania

2009

USA

1995

Canada1994

Bulgaria

UK

Hungary

TaiwanSlovakia

Germany

BrazilArgentina

South Africa

Pakistan

2020

South Africa

1989

Mexico

1997
1988
1989
1990

Romania

Japan

2020

Argentina

China

2019

2020

Pakistan

Mexico

2015

India

2011

Slovenia

1998

Netherlands

1986

Brazil2001

Armenia

Iran

2017

UAE

UAE

BelarusBelarus

IranNetherlands

2005

2002

Sweden

2007

80

2015

Spain

Czech Republic

70

2014

2001

Taiwan© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

20

2004

1998

2019
2020
Historic Maximum
1998 Historic Maximum Year

10

Sources: IAEA-PRIS, and national sources for France and Switzerland, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

OPERATION, POWER GENERATION,
AGE DISTRIBUTION
Since the first nuclear power reactor was connected to the Soviet power grid at Obninsk in
1954, there have been two major waves of startups. The first peaked in 1974, with 26 gridconnections in that year. The second reached a historic maximum in 1984 and 1985, just before
the Chernobyl accident, reaching 33 grid connections in each year. By the end of the 1980s, theuninterrupted net increase of operating units had ceased, and in 1990 for the first time thenumber of reactor closures38 outweighed the number of startups.
The 1991–2000 decade produced far more startups than closures (52/30), while in the decade
2001–2010, startups did not match closures (32/37). Furthermore, after 2000, it took a whole
decade to connect as many units as in a single year in the middle of the 1980s (see Figure 4).
Between 2011 and 2020, the startup of 63 reactors—of which 37 (59 percent) in China alone—
outpaced by only two the closure of 61 units over the same period.
Over the two decades 2001–2020, there were 95 startups and 98 closures in the world. As there
were 47 startups and no closures in China over the period, the 98 closures outside China werematched by only 48 startups, a drastic decline by 50 units over the period (see Figure 5).
As larger units were started up (totaling 85.5 GW) than closed (totaling 59 GW) the net nuclear
capacity added worldwide over the 20-year period was 26.5 GW. However, since China alone
added 45 GW, the net capacity outside China declined by over 20 GW.
After the startup of 10 reactors in each of the years 2015 and 2016, only four units started up in
2017, of which three in China and one in Pakistan (built by Chinese companies). In 2018, ninereactors generated power for the first time, of which seven in China and two in Russia.
In 2019, six units were connected to the grid, of which three in Russia, two in China and one inSouth Korea, while five units were closed, of which two in the U.S., and one each in Germany,
Sweden and Switzerland.
In 2020, five units were commissioned, two in China and one each in Belarus, Russia and theUnited Arab Emirates (UAE). At the same time, six units were closed including two each inFrance and the U.S. and one each in Russia and Sweden. Four new units were connected to theworld’s power grids in the first half of 2021, including two in China, while two reactors wereclosed, one each in the U.S. and Taiwan. (See Figure 5).

38 - With WNISR2019 we have introduced “closure” as general term for permanent shutdown, in order to avoid confusion with the useof “shutdown” for provisional grid disconnections for maintenance, refueling, upgrading or due to incidents. WNISR considers closure
from the moment of grid disconnection—and not from the moment of the industrial, political or economic decision—and as the units
have not generated power for several years, in WNISR statistics, they are closed in the year of their latest power generation.

| 47

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 48

Figure 4 · Nuclear Power Reactor Grid Connections and Closures in the World

Reactor Startups and Closures in the Worldin Units, from 1954 to 1 July 2021

Reactor Startups

30

YearlyBalance25© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Reactor Closures

20
15
10
5

1954

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

-5
-10
7/21

-15
-20
-25

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Notes:
As of 2019, WNISR is using the term “Closed” instead of “Permanent Shutdown” for reactors that have ceased power production, as WNISR considers thereactors closed as of the date of their last production. Although this definition is not new, it had not been applied to all reactors or fully reflected in the
WNISR database; this applies to known/referenced examples like Superphénix in France, which had not produced in the two years before it was officiallyclosed or the Italian reactors that were de facto closed prior to the referendum in 1987, or some other cases. Those changes obviously affect many of the
Figures relating to the world nuclear reactor fleet (Startup and Closures, Evolution of world fleet, age of closed reactors, amongst others.)

As of mid-2021, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to count 33 units
in Japan in its total number of 443 reactors “in operation” in the world. That is a significant
drop of eight compared to mid-2019.39 No nuclear electricity was generated in Japan between
September 2013 and August 2015, and as of 1 July 2021, only six reactors were operating. Nuclear
plants provided only 5.1 percent of the electricity in Japan in 2020 versus 7.5 percent in 2019. It
is the first time since all of the Japanese fleet came to a halt in 2014 following the events of 3/11
that the nuclear output is declining again (for details see Japan Focus).
The WNISR will keep reiterating its call for an appropriate reflection in world nuclear statisticsof the unique situation in Japan. The attitude taken by the IAEA, the Japanese government,utilities, industry and many research bodies as well as other governments and organizations
to continue considering the entire stranded reactor fleet in the country as “in operation” or“operational” is misleading.
39 - IAEA, “Power Reactor Information System”, International Atomic Energy Agency, Undated,
see https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=JP, accessed 22 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 49

Figure 5 · Nuclear Power Reactor Grid Connections and Closures – The Continuing China Effect
7/21

Reactor Startups and Closures in the Worldin Units, from 1954 to 1 July 2021
35

Reactor Startups
China
Rest of the World

30
25

Reactor Closures
All Countries (No Chinese in Total)

20© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

15
10
5
1954

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

-5
-10
-15
-20
-25

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

The IAEA does have a reactor-status category called “Long-term Shutdown” or LTS. 40 Under
the IAEA’s definition, a reactor is considered in LTS, if it has been shut down for an “extended
period (usually more than one year)”, and in early period of shutdown either restart is not being“aggressively pursued” or “no firm restart date or recovery schedule has been established”. The
IAEA currently lists zero reactors anywhere in the LTS category.
The IAEA criteria are vague and hence subject to arbitrary interpretation. What exactly
are extended periods? What is aggressively pursuing? What is a firm restart date or recovery
schedule? Faced with this dilemma, the WNISR team in 2014 decided to create a new category
with a simple definition, based on empirical fact, without room for speculation: “Long-term
Outage” or LTO. Its definition:
A nuclear reactor is considered in Long-Term Outage or LTO if it has not generated any
electricity in the previous calendar year and in the first half of the current calendar year. It iswithdrawn from operational status retroactively from the day it has been disconnected fromthe grid.

When subsequently the decision is taken to close a reactor, the closure status starts with the
day of the last electricity generation, and the WNISR statistics are retroactively modified
accordingly.
40 - See IAEA Glossary, at www.iaea.org/pris/Glossary.aspx, accessed 22 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 50

Applying this definition to the world nuclear reactor fleet, as of 1 July 2021, leads to classifying
26 units in LTO—all considered “in operation” by the IAEA—five less than in WNISR2020, of
which 24 in Japan (no change) and one each in India (Madras-1) and in South Korea (Hanbit-4).
Two of the reactors in LTO in WNISR2020 were closed in the U.K. (Dungeness-B1 and -B2),
one each was restarted in China (CEFR), Japan (Mihama-3), South Korea (Hanbit-3), and the
U.K. (Hunterston-B1). One new reactor entered the LTO category in Japan (Ikata-3).
As of 1 July 2021, a total of 415 nuclear reactors were operating in 33 countries, up seven units
from the situation in mid-2020 but still two below the status as of mid-2019. 41 The current
world fleet has a total nominal electric net capacity of 369 GW, up by 7 GW (+1.9 percent) fromone year earlier, representing a new peak just above the former record of 367 GW in 2006.
The number of operating reactors remains by three below the figure reached in 1989 and by 23
below the 2002 peak (see Figure 6).
Figure 6 · World Nuclear Reactor Fleet, 1954–2021

Nuclear Reactors and Net Operating Capacity in the Worldin Units and GWe, from 1954 to 1 July 2021
2002
Maximum
Operating Units
438 Reactors

1989
310 GWe
418 Reactors

Units

7/2021415 Reactors
Maximum Operating Capacity
369 GWe

GWe

400

400
Reactors in Operation
300

Operating Capacity

300© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

200

200

100

100

0 1954

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

0

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Note
Changes in the database regarding closing dates of reactors or LTO status slightly change the shape of this graph from previous editions. In particular, theprevious “maximum operating capacity” of 2006 (overtaken in July 2019) is now at 367 GW.

For many years, the net installed capacity has continued to increase more than the net numberof operating reactors. This is a result of the combined effects of larger units replacing smaller
ones. (In 1989, the average size of an operational nuclear reactor was about 740 MW, whilethat number has increased to almost 890 MW in 2021). Technical alterations raised capacity
at existing plants resulting in larger electricity output, a process known as uprating. 42 In the
U.S. alone, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved 170 uprates since 1977.
41 - +9 startups +4 restart –1 new LTO –5 closures.
42 - Increasing the capacity of nuclear reactors by equipment upgrades e.g. more powerful steam generators or turbines.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 51

The cumulative approved uprates in the U.S. total 8 GW, the equivalent of eight large reactors.
These include six minor uprates (<2 percent of reactor capacity) approved since mid-2020. 43
A similar trend of uprates and major overhauls in view of lifetime extensions of existing
reactors has been seen in Europe. The main incentive for lifetime extensions is economic
but this argument is being increasingly challenged as backfitting costs soar and alternatives
become cheaper.

OVERVIEW OF CURRENT NEW-BUILD
As of 1 July 2021, 53 reactors are considered as under construction, one more than WNISR
reported a year ago, but 16 fewer than in 2013 (five of those units have subsequently beenabandoned). The number includes 18 units or one third being built in China.
Four in five reactors are built in Asia or Eastern Europe. In total, 17 countries are building
nuclear plants, the same as reported in WNISR2020 (see Table 1). However, only four countries
have construction ongoing at more than one site (see Annex 4, Figure 7 for details). Since mid2020, ten new construction sites were launched worldwide, including seven in China. One
construction start took place in each of India (Kudankulam-5), Russia (Brest-OD-300) andTurkey (Akkuyu-3).
Figure 7 · Nuclear Reactors “Under Construction” in the World (as of 1 July 2021)

Reactors Under Construction in the Worldin Units, from 1951 to 1 July 2021

234

Construction Status
as of 1 July 2021
Construction Later Abandoned or Suspended

48

200

Construction Completed or Underway
Construction Starts
150© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

186

100
69

50

38

50 51 53

44
64

22

0 1951

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

15
1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

10

35
2015

6 56
7/21

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Notes:
This figure includes construction of two CAP1400 reactors at Rongcheng/Shidaowan, although their construction has not been officially announced(see China Focus). At Shidao Bay, the plant under construction since 2012 has actually two reactors on the site and is therefore counted as two units as of
WNISR2020.

43 - U.S.NRC, “Approved Applications for Power Uprates”, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Updated 5 February 2021,
see http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/power-uprates/status-power-apps/approved-applications.html,
accessed 22 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 52

The number of 53 reactors listed as under construction by mid-2021 compares poorly with apeak of 234—totaling more than 200 GW—in 1979. However, many (48) of those projects listed
in 1979 were never finished (see Figure 7). The year 2005, with 26 units under construction,marked a record low since the early nuclear age in the 1950s.
Compared to the situation described a year ago, the total capacity of the 53 units underconstruction in the world as of mid-2021 increased by just 0.5 GW to 54 GW, with an average
unit size of 1,020 MW.
Table 1 - Nuclear Reactors “Under Construction” (as of 1 July 2021)44
Units

Capacity(MW net)Construction Start

Grid Connection

Units Behind
Schedule

China

18

17 062

2012 - 2021

2021 - 2027

4

India

7

5 194

2004 - 2021

2022 - 2026

6

South Korea

4

5 360

2012 - 20182022 - 2025

4

Russia3

2 650

2018 - 2021

2022 - 2026

0

Turkey3

3 342

2018 - 2021

2024 - 2026

1

UAE

3

4 035

2013 - 2015

2021 - 2023

3

Bangladesh

2

2 160

2017 - 20182023 - 20240

Slovakia

2

880

1985 - 1985

2021 - 2023

2

UK

2

3 260

2018 - 20192026 - 2027

2

USA

2

2 234

2013

2022 -2023

2

Argentina

1

25

2014

2024

1

Belarus

1

1 110

2014

2022

1

Finland

1

1 600

2005

2022

1

France

1

1 600

2007

2023

1

Iran

1

1 196

1976

2024

1

Japan

1

1 325

2007

2025

1

Pakistan

1

1 014

2016

2022

1

Total

53

54 047

1976 - 2021

2021 - 2027

31

Country

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes:
This table does not contain suspended or abandoned constructions.
This table includes construction of two CAP1400 reactors at Rongcheng/Shidaowan, although their construction has not been officially announced(see China Focus). At Shidao Bay, the plant under construction since 2012 has two reactors on the site and is therefore counted as two units as of
WNISR2020.

44 - For further details, see Annex 4 – Nuclear Reactors in the “World Under Construction”.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

CONSTRUCTION TIMES
Construction Times of Reactors Currently Under Construction
A closer look at projects presently listed as “under construction” illustrates the level of
uncertainty and problems associated with many of these projects, especially given that mostbuilders assume a five-year construction period to begin with:
ɆɆ As of 1 July 2021, for the 53 reactors being built an average of seven years have passed sinceconstruction start—slightly lower than the mid-2020 average of 7.3 years— and manyremain far from completion.
ɆɆ All reactors under construction in at least 12 of the 17 countries have experienced mostly
year-long delays. At least 31 (58.5 percent) of the building projects are delayed. Most of theunits which are nominally being built on-time were begun within the past three years or
have not yet reached projected startup dates, making it difficult to assess whether or notthey are on schedule. Particular uncertainty remains over construction sites in Bangladesh,
China, Russia, and Turkey.
ɆɆ Of the 31 reactors clearly documented as behind schedule, at least 13 have reported increased
delays and four have reported new delays over the past year.
ɆɆ WNISR2019 noted a total of 13 reactors scheduled for startup in 2020 but only three ofthese did so, while the other 10 were delayed at least into 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic
clearly influenced some of the commissioning schedules.
ɆɆ Construction start of two projects dates back 36 years, Mochovce-3 and -4 in Slovakia, andtheir startup has been further delayed, currently to late 2021 and 2023. Bushehr-2 originally
started construction in 1976, that is 45 years ago, and resumed construction in 2019 after a
40-year-long suspension. Grid connection is currently scheduled for 2024.
ɆɆ Five additional reactors have been listed as “under construction” for a decade or more:
the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) and Kakrapar-4 in India, the Olkiluoto-3 (OL3)reactor project in Finland, Shimane-3 in Japan, and Flamanville-3 (FL3) in France. The
Finnish and French projects have been further delayed this year, grid connections of the
Indian units are likely to be postponed again, and the Japanese reactor does not even havea provisional startup date.
The actual lead time for nuclear plant projects includes not only the construction itself but
also lengthy licensing procedures in most countries, complex financing negotiations, site
preparation and other infrastructure development.

Construction Times of Past and Currently Operating Reactors
Since the beginning of the nuclear power age, there has been a clear global trend towards
increasing construction times. National building programs were faster in the early years of
nuclear power, when units were smaller and safety regulations were less stringent. As Figure 8
illustrates, construction times of reactors completed in the 1970s and 1980s were quite
homogenous, while in the past two decades they have varied widely.

| 53

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 54Figure 8 · Average Annual Construction Times in the World

Average Annual Durations from Construction Start to Grid Connection

Duration in Years

by Grid Connection Date, from 1954 to 1 July 2021
16
Number of Reactors

1

5

10

20

14
12

30

10

10

8

8

6

6

4

4
2

2
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
1954

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020 7/21

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

The 11 units completed in 2018–2020 by the Chinese nuclear industry took on average 7.1 years
to build, while the six Russian projects took a mean 15 years from first construction start togrid connection, with Rostov-4 taking 35 years from construction start to finally generate
power (see The Construction Saga of Rostov Reactors 3 and 4).
The case of the twin “floating” reactors Akademik-Lomonosov is particularly interesting.
These are small 30-MW reactors meant to demonstrate a precursor to a new generation of
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), smaller, cheaper, and faster to build. However, construction
has taken longer than any other reactor that has come on-line over the three-year period(with the exception of Rostov-4) and about four times as long as originally projected; a little
before construction of the ship began in 2007, Rosatom announced that the plant would begin
operating in October 201045, which finally happened in December 2019. Not surprisingly, the“nuclear barge” has become more expensive, from an initial estimate of around 6 billion rubles(US$2007232 million)46 to at least 37 billion rubles as of 2015 (US$2015740 million), 47 or close to
US$25,000 per installed kilowatt, almost twice as costly as the most expensive Generation III
reactors. 48

45 - Rosatom, “The first offshore nuclear heat and electrical power plant of small capacity is planned to operate in October 2010 in
Severodvinsk (Arkhangelsk district)”, Press Release, 15 December 2006; and IPFM, “Global Fissile Material Report 2007—Developing
the technical basis for policy initiatives to secure and irreversibly reduce stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile materials”, Second
Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, 1 October 2007,see http://fissilematerials.org/publications/2007/10/global_fissile_material_report_1.html, accessed 3 September 2020.
46 - WNN, “Russian floating reactor construction starts”, 17 April 2007, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Russianfloating-reactor-construction-starts, accessed 3 September 2020.
47 - Charles Digges, “New documents show cost of Russian floating nuclear power plant skyrockets”, Bellona, 25 May 2015,see http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2015-05-new-documents-show-cost-russian-nuclear-power-plant-skyrockets,
accessed 28 December 2015.
48 - The current cost estimate—including financing costs—of the Flamanville-3 EPR is about US$13,700/kW (see France Focus).

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 55

The mean time from construction start to grid connection for the five reactors started up in2020 was 7.2 years, a clear improvement over the 9.9 years in 2019 and 10.9 years in 2018. In thecase of the four units connected in the first half of 2021, the duration was 6.7 years.
While mean construction times have been improving more recently, over the three years
2018‑2020, only two of 20 units started up on-time, and those are Tianwan-4 and -5 in China,
a Russian-designed but mainly Chinese-built VVER-1000 (model V-428M), that the designers
claim to belong to Gen III classification, but few details are known. The two Chinese units
Yangjiang-5 and -6 were completed with minor delays in 4.7 and 5.5 years respectively. These
are ACPR1000 reactors, designed by China General Nuclear Corp. (CGN) that claims containat least ten improvements making them a Gen III design. 49
Leaving the epic Rostov-4 case aside, the other units that started up in China (four AP1000s,
two EPRs), the two large reactors in Russia (Leningrad 2-1 and Novovoronezh 2-2) and theone in South Korea (Shin-Kori-4) all experienced years-long delays and roughly doubled theirrespective planned construction time to 8.3–9.8 years, while the two floating reactors tookwith 12.7 years about four times as long to complete as planned (see Figure 9).
Figure 9 · Delays for Units Started Up 2018–2020
Expected vs. Real Duration from Construction Start to Grid Connection for Startups 2018–2020
in Years
BelarusBelarusian-1

7

5

China
Fuqing-5
Haiyang-1
Haiyang-2
Sanmen-1
Sanmen-2
Taishan-1
Taishan-2
Tianwan-4
Tianwan-5
Yangjiang-5
Yangjiang-6

4.1 4.7
4.7
5.5South Korea
Shin-Kori-4

5

5.6

4.5
4.8
4.8
4.5
4.7
4.1
4.5

8.9
8.3
9.2
8.7
8.7
9.2

Expected Construction Time

5.1
4.6

RussiaAkademik Lomonosov-1
Akademik Lomonosov-2
Leningrad 2-1
Leningrad 2-2
Novovoronezh 2-2
Rostov-4

Construction Suspension
Delay© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

9.6

3.7
3.7

9.4

5
5
5

10.5
9.8

6

UAE
Barakah-1

5

0

5

12.7
12.7
35.1

8.1
10

15

20

25

30

35

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Note
Expected construction time is based on grid connection data provided at construction start when available; alternatively, best estimates are used, based oncommercial operation, completion, or commissioning information.

49 - Caroline Peachey, “Chinese reactor design evolution”, NEI, 22 May 2014, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurechinese-reactor-design-evolution-4272370/, accessed 14 August 2019.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 56

The longer-term perspective confirms that short construction times remain the exceptions.
Ten countries completed 63 reactors over the decade 2011–2020—of which 37 in China alone—
after an average construction time of 10 years (see Table 2). That is two countries more
(Belarus, UAE) than for the decade 2010–2019 with otherwise exactly the same numbers.
Table 2 – Duration from Construction Start to Grid Connection 2011–2020
Construction Times of 63 Units Started-up 2011–2020
Country

Units

Construction Time (in Years)
Mean Time

Minimum

Maximum

China

37

6.1

4.1

11.2

Russia

10

18.7

8.1

35.1

South Korea

5

6.4

4.2

9.6

India

3

11.5

8.7

14.2

Pakistan

3

5.4

5.2

5.6

Argentina

1

33.0

33.0

Belarus

1

7.0

7.0

Iran

1

36.3

36.3

UAE

1

8.1

8.1

USA

1

42.8

42.8

World

63

9.9

4.1

42.8

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

CONSTRUCTION STARTS & CANCELLATIONSThe number of annual construction starts50 in the world peaked in 1976 at 44, of which
11 projects were later abandoned. In 2010, there were 15 construction starts—including 10 in
China—the highest level since 1985 (see Figure 10 and Figure 11). That number dropped to
five in 2020—including four in China—while building started on six units—including three in
China—in the first half of 2021. Like most of the construction projects of the past decades, it
was government owned or controlled companies that launched all the 11 reactors over the past
18 months.
Seriously affected by the Fukushima events, China did not start any construction in 2011 and2014 and began work only on eight units in total in 2012 and 2013. While Chinese utilities started
building six more units in 2015, the number shrank to two in 2016, only a demonstration fast
reactor in 2017, none in 2018, but four in 2019 (see Figure 11). While this increase apparently isa sign of the restart of commercial reactor building in China, the level continues to remain far
below expectations. The five-year plan 2016–2020 had fixed a target of 58 GW operating and
30 GW under construction by 2020. As of the end of 2020, China had 49 units with 47.5 GW
operating, one reactor in LTO (CEFR) and 17 units with 16 GW under construction, far fromthe original target.
50 - Generally, a reactor is considered under construction with the beginning of the concreting of the base slab of the reactor building.
Site preparation work, excavation and other infrastructure developments are not included.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 57

Figure 10 · Construction Starts in the World

Construction Starts of Nuclear Reactors in the Worldin Units, from 1951 to 1 July 2021
44

Construction Status
as of 1 July 2021
Construction Abandoned or Suspended
Construction Completed

1140

Under Construction...

30
32© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

20
15
10

10

0

1951

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

Bushehr-2

1985

1990

1995

2000

Mochovce-3 and -4

2005

PFBR
Olkiluoto-3

2010

8

6

2015

56
7/21

Kakrapar-4
Flamanville-3
Shimane-3

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Notes:
Construction of Bushehr-2, started in 1976, was considered abandoned in earlier versions of this figure. As construction was restarted in 2019, it now appears
as “Under Construction”. The Chinese project at Shidao Bay-1 is considered as two reactors, and construction starts in 2012 reflect this change.

Figure 11 · Construction Starts in the World/China

Construction Starts of Nuclear Reactors in the Worldin Units, from 1951 to 1 July 2021

44

40

China
Other countries
30© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

20
15
10

10

10

8
6

5

0 1951

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

1

6

443
2 5
2 4 2132015
7/21

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Over the decade 2011–2020, construction began on 57 reactors in the world, of which three
have been abandoned (Baltic-1 in Russia, V.C. Summer-2 and -3 in the U.S.). With 18 units,
one third of the ongoing building projects are located in China. As of mid-2021, only 15 of the
54 units have started up, while 39 remain under construction.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 58

Experience shows that simply having an order for a reactor, or even having a nuclear plantat an advanced stage of construction, is no guarantee of ultimate grid connection and power
production. The abandonment of the two V.C. Summer units at the end of July 2017 after
four years of construction and following multi-billion-dollar investment is only the latest
example in a long list of failed nuclear power plant projects.
French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) statistics through 2002
indicate 253 “cancelled orders” in 31 countries, many of them at an advanced construction stage(see also Figure 12). The United States alone accounted for 138 of these order cancellations.51
Figure 12 · Cancelled or Suspended Reactor Constructions

Abandoned Reactor Constructions from 1970 to 1 July 2021
in Units by Cancellation Year and Country
Brazil - 1
Cuba - 2
USA - 42
Austria - 1
Bulgaria - 2
Czech Rep. - 2
Germany - 6
Italy - 3
Lithuania - 1
Poland - 2
Romania - 3
Russia - 12
Spain - 4
Sweden - 1
Ukraine - 6
Japan - 1
N. Korea - 1
Philippines - 1
Taiwan - 2
1970

Total - 93

1

1975

1980

2 1

Number of Reactors

1985

2 5 11 5 13

1

2

5

1990

3

1995

2000

9 3 12 3 2 9

11

2005

2010

2015 171
1
1 3 1 2 1
2
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

The Americas

EuropeAsia and Middle East
Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Note: This graph only includes constructions that had officially started with the concreting of the base slab of the reactor building.

Of the 783 reactor constructions launched since 1951, at least 93 units in 19 countries had
been abandoned or are suspended, as of 1 July 2021. This means that 12 percent or one in eight
nuclear constructions have been abandoned.
Close to three-quarters (66 units) of all cancelled projects were in four countries alone—
the U.S. (42), Russia (12), Germany and Ukraine (six each). Some units were 100-percent
completed—including Kalkar in Germany and Zwentendorf in Austria—before the decision
was taken not to operate them.

51 - CEA, “Elecnuc—Nuclear Power Plants in the World”, French Alternatives Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, 2002. The
section “cancelled orders” has disappeared after the 2002 edition.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 59

OPERATING AGE
In the absence of significant, successful new-build over many years, the average age (fromgrid connection) of operating nuclear power plants has been increasing since 1984 and as of
mid‑2021 it is standing at 30.9 years, up from 30.7 years in mid-2020 (see Figure 13).52
Figure 13 · Age Distribution of Operating Reactors in the WorldAge of World Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age

189
39
29

69

415 Reactors
Mean Age
30.9 Years

83
6

0–10 Years
11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
51 Years and Over
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

A total of 278 reactors, two-thirds of the world’s operating fleet, have operated for 31 or more
years, including 89—more than one in five—for 41 years or more.
In 1990, the average age of the operating reactors in the world was 11.3 years, in 2000, it was
18.8 years and stood at 26.3 years by 2010. The leading nuclear nation is also leading the age
pyramid. The U.S. has passed the 40-year average age in 2020. France’s fleet exceeds 35 years.
Russia inversed the curve starting in 2016 and its average fleet age of 27.8 years as of the endof 2020 remains 2.4 years below the 2015-peak. South Korea’s reactors at 21.4 years remain half
as old as the U.S. fleet, and China is the obvious newcomer with an average fleet age of just
8.3 years. (See Figure 14).
Many nuclear utilities envisage reactor lifetimes of beyond 40 years up to 60 and even 80 years.
In the U.S., reactors are initially licensed to operate for 40 years, but nuclear operators canrequest a license renewal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for an additional
20 years. An initiative to allow for 40-year license extensions in one step was terminated after
NRC staff had recommended in June 2021 to “discontinue the activity to consider regulatory
and other changes to enable license renewal for 40 years”.53

52 - WNISR calculates reactor age from grid connection to final disconnection from the grid. In WNISR statistics, “startup” issynonymous with grid connection and “closure” with withdrawal from the grid. In order to have a better image of the fleet andease calculations, the age of a reactor is considered to be 1 between the first and second grid connection anniversaries. For some
calculations, we also use operating years: the reactor is in its first operating year until the first grid connection anniversary, when it
enters the second operating year.
53 - NRC, Division of New and Renewed Licenses, “Closure of Activity to Consider License Renewal for 40 Years of Additional
Nuclear Power Plant Operation”, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S.NRC, 22 June 2021, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2111/
ML21117A007.pdf, accessed 11 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 60

Figure 14 · Reactor-Fleet Age of Top 5 Nuclear Generators

Evolution of Mean Age of Top 5 Reactor Fleets in the World

Mean Agein Years,
as of 31 December 2020

in Years, as of year-end 1954–2020
40

USA 40.2

35France 35.6

30

World 30.7
Russia 27.8

25

South Korea
21.4

20
15
10

China 8.3

5
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
1954

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

As of mid-2021, 97 U.S. units had received a 20-year license extension, no further applications
were under NRC review. Nine units with renewed licenses were closed early, and two
applications for three reactors were withdrawn as Crystal River was closed and the other two
at Diablo Canyon will close when their current license expires in 2024–2025 (see United States
Focus). Three additional applications for four reactors are expected in 2021–2023.54
So far, the NRC has granted Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses to six reactors, which
permit operation from 60 to 80 years. A further seven reactors have their applications still
under review.55
Only eight of the 40 units that have been closed in the U.S. had reached 40 years on the grid.
All eight had obtained licenses to operate up to 60 years but were closed much earlier mainlyfor economic reasons. In other words, at least one fourth of the 133 reactors connected to thegrid in the U.S. at any point in time never reached their initial design lifetime of 40 years. Noneof those already closed had reached yet 50 years of operation. The mean age at closure of those
40 units was 22 years.
On the other hand, of the 93 currently operating plants, 44 units have already operated for
41 years or more (of six have been on the grid for 50 years or more); thus, half of the units withlicense renewals have entered the lifetime extension period, and that share is growing rapidly
with the mid-2021 mean age of the U.S. operational fleet exceeding 40 years (see Figure 34 andUnited States Focus).
54 - NRC, “Status of License Renewal Applications and Industry Activities”, Updated 13 March 2019,see http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html, accessed 23 August 2020.
55 - NRC, “Status of Subsequent License Renewal Applications”, as of 4 August 2021, see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/subsequent-license-renewal.html, accessed 11 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 61

Many countries have no specific time limits on operating licenses. In France, for example,
reactors must undergo in-depth inspection and testing every decade against reinforced safety
requirements. The French reactors have operated for 36 years on average, and most of them
have completed the process with the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) evaluating eachreactor allowing them to operate for up to 40 years, which is the limit of their initial design age.
However, the ASN assessments are years behind schedule. For economic reasons, the Frenchstate-controlled utility Électricité de France (EDF) clearly prioritizes lifetime extension to
50 years over large-scale new-build.
EDF’s approach to lifetime extension has been reviewed by ASN and its Technical Support
Organization (TSO). In February 2021, ASN granted a conditional generic agreement tolifetime extensions of the 32 reactors of the 900 MW series. However, lifetime extensions
beyond 40 years require site-specific licensing procedures involving public inquiries in France.
Recently commissioned reactors and the ones under construction in South Korea do or will
have a 60-year operating license from the start. EDF will certainly also aim for a 60-year
license for its Hinkley Point C units in the U.K.
In assessing the likelihood of reactors being able to operate for 50 or 60 years, it is useful
to compare the age distribution of reactors that are currently operating with those that havealready closed (see Figure 13 and Figure 15). The age structure of the 196 units already closed(seven more than one year ago) completes the picture. In total, 77 of these units operated for
31 years or more, and of those, 33 reactors operated for 41 years or more. Many units of the firstgeneration designs only operated for a few years. The mean age of the closed units is about
27 years.
Figure 15 · Age Distribution of Closed Nuclear Power Reactors

Age of Closed Nuclear Reactors in the World
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age

58

0–10 Years
47
29

28

196 Reactors
Mean Age27.1 Years34

11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

To be sure, the operating time prior to closure has clearly increased continuously. The mean
age at closure of the 23 units taken off the grids between 2016 and 2020 was 42.6 years (seeFigure 16).

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 62Figure 16 · Nuclear Reactor Closure Age

Evolution of Nuclear Reactors' Average Closure Age 1963 – 1 July 2021
Age in Yearsby Closure Year
Average Closure Age
2016–2020
42.6 years
1

45

2 5
12
25
Number of Reactors

40

35

35

30

30

25

25

20

20

15

15

10

10
5

5
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
1963 1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

As a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (elsewhere referred to as 3/11), questions havebeen raised about the wisdom of operating older reactors. The Fukushima Daiichi units (1 to
4) were connected to the grid between 1970 and 1974. The license for Unit 1 had been extended
for another 10 years in February 2011, just one month before the catastrophe began. Four days
after the accidents in Japan, the German government ordered the closure of eight reactors that
had started up before 1981, two of which were already closed at the time and never restarted.
The sole selection criterion was operational age. Other countries did not adopt the same
approach, but clearly the 3/11 events in Japan had an impact on previously assumed extended
lifetimes in other countries, including in Belgium, Switzerland and Taiwan. Some of the main
nuclear countries closed their respective then oldest unit before age 50, including Germany atage 37, South Korea at 40, Sweden at 46 and the U.S. at 49. France closed its two oldest units inspring 2020 at age 43.

LIFETIME PROJECTIONS
Nuclear operators in many countries continue to implement or prepare for lifetime extensions.
As in previous years, WNISR has created two lifetime projections. A first scenario (40-Year
Lifetime Projection, see Figure 17), assumes a general lifetime of 40 years for worldwide
operating reactors—not including reactors in Long-Term Outage (LTO).

2020

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 63Figure 17 · The 40-Year Lifetime Projection

Projection 2021–2050 of Nuclear Reactors/Capacity in the World
General assumption of 40-year mean lifetime
Operating and Under Construction as of 1 July 2021, in GWe and Units
Capacity in GWe

YearlyBalance

10

Reactor Startups

Capacity Added
Capacity Closed

Reactor Closures

10© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

50

Number ofReactors

2021

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

5
2050

0

-5

-5

-10

-10

-15

-15

-20

-20

-25

-25

-30

-30

-35

-35
2021-2030–178 Reactors–152.5 GW

2031-2040–80 Reactors–69.5 GW

2041-2050–27 Reactors–21 GW

Sources: Various sources, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes pertaining to Figure 17, Figure 18 and Figure 19.
Those figures include one Japanese reactor (Shimane) and two Chinese 1400 MW-units at Shidao Bay, for which the startup dates were arbitrarily set to 2025
and 2024, as there are no official dates.
The restart of two reactors (Mihama-3 and CEFR) from LTO prior to 7/2021 appears as “startup”. Potential restarts or closures amongst the 26 reactors in
LTO as of 1 July 2021 are not represented here.
The figures take into account “early retirements” of three reactors in the U.S.; the early retirement as of 2021 for four Exelon reactors recently announced
to close in September and November of this year, is not taken into account due to uncertainties; in the case of four additional reactors, the reversal of early
retirements has been maintained although some are likely to be repealed, and others might be added (see United States Focus); the figures also take into
account political decisions to close reactors prior to 40 years (Germany, South-Korea).
In the case of reactors that have reached 40 years of operation prior to 2021, the 40-Year projection also uses the end of their licensed lifetime (including 6
reactors licensed for 80 years in the U.S.)
In the case of French reactors that have reached 40 years of operation prior to 2021 (startup before 1981), we use the deadline for their 4th periodic safety
review (visite décennale) as closing date in the 40-year projection. For all those that have already passed their 3rd periodic safety review, the scheduled dateof their 4th periodic safety review is used in the PLEX projection, regardless of their startup date.

The 40-year number corresponds to the design lifetimes of most operating reactors. Somecountries have legislation or policy (Belgium, South Korea, Taiwan) in place that limit
operating lifetime, for all or part of the fleet, to 40 or 50 years. Recent designs, mostly reactors
under construction, have a design lifetime of 60 years (e.g. APR1400, EPR). For the 99 reactorsthat have passed the 40-year lifetime, we assume they will operate to the end of their licensed,
extended operating time.
A second scenario (Plant Life Extension or PLEX Projection, see Figure 18) takes into accountall already-authorized lifetime extensions.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 64

The lifetime projections allow for an evaluation of the number of plants and respective power
generating capacity that would have to come online over the next decades to offset closuresand simply maintain the same number of operating plants and level of capacity, if all units wereclosed after a lifetime of 40 years.
Considering all units under construction scheduled to have started up and not including
potential early closure of the four units at Byron and Dresden sites in the U.S.,56 17 additional
reactors (compared to the end of 2020 status) would have to be commissioned or restarted
prior to the end of 2021 in order to maintain the status quo of operating units. Without
additional startups, installed nuclear capacity would decrease by 15.9 GW by the end of 2021.
In the decade to 2030, in addition to the units currently under construction, 178 new reactors(152.6 GW)—18 units or 15 GW per year—would have to be connected to the grid to maintainthe status quo, almost three times the rate achieved over the past decade (63 startups between
2011 and 2020).
Figure 18 · The PLEX Projection (not including LTOs)

Projection 2021–2050 of Nuclear Reactors/Capacity in the World
General assumption of 40-year mean lifetime + Authorized Lifetime Extensions
Operating and Under Construction as of 1 July 2021, in GWe and Units

Capacity in GWe

YearlyBalance

10

Reactor Startups
Reactor Closures

Number ofReactors

10© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

50Capacity Added
Capacity Closed

2021

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

5
0

2050

-5

-5

-10

-10

-15

-15

-20

-20

-25

-25

-30

-30

2021-2030–123 Reactors–95.5 GW

2031-2040–91 Reactors–77 GW

2041-2050–71 Reactors–70.5 GW

Sources: Various sources, compiled by WNISR, 2021

56 - Darren Sweeney, “Exelon CEO says closing nuclear plants ‘right economic decision’ absent support”, S&P Global, 4 August 2021,
see https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/exelon-ceo-says-closing-nuclear-plantsright-economic-decision-absent-support-65881124, accessed 7 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 65

The stabilization of the situation by the end of 2021 is only possible because most reactors
will likely not close at the end of the year, regardless of their age. As a result, the numberof reactors in operation will likely continue to stagnate at best, unless—beyond restarts—
lifetime extensions become the rule worldwide. Such generalized lifetime extensions—far
beyond 40 years—are clearly the objective of the nuclear power industry, and, especially in the
U.S., there are numerous more or less successful attempts to obtain subsidies for uneconomic
nuclear plants in order to keep them on the grid (see United States Focus).
Developments in Asia, including in China, do not fundamentally change the global picture.
Reported ambitions for China’s targets for installed nuclear capacity have fluctuated in thepast. While construction starts have picked up speed again, Chinese medium-term ambitions
appear significantly lower than anticipated in the pre-3/11 era.
Every year, WNISR also models a scenario in which all currently licensed lifetime extensions
and license renewals (mainly in the U.S.) are maintained, and all construction sites arecompleted. For all other units, we have maintained a 40-year lifetime projection, unless afirm earlier or later closure date has been announced. By the end of 2021, the net number ofoperating reactors and operating capacity would remain almost stable (+ 1 unit / + 0.3 GW, notincluding the potential early closure of the four units at Byron and Dresden in the U.S.).
In the decade to 2030, the net balance would turn negative as soon as 2024, and an additional
123 new reactors (95.3 GW)—one unit or 0.8 GW per month—would have to start up or restart
to replace closures. The PLEX-Projection would still mean, in the coming decade, a need to
double the annual building rate of the past decade from six to twelve (see Figure 17, Figure 18
and the cumulated effect in Figure 19).
Figure 19 · Forty-Year Lifetime Projection versus PLEX Projection

World Nuclear Reactor Fleet
in Units, from July 2021 to 2050
7/2021

Composition of World Fleet
LTO
Lifetime > 40 Years
Lifetime ≤ 40 Years

400
300

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

200
100
0

2021

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

2050

Sources: Various sources, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Note: This figure illustrates the trends, and the projected composition of the current world nuclear fleet, taking into account existing reactors (operating andin LTO) and their closure dates (40-years Lifetime vs authorized Lifetime Extension) as well as the 53 reactors under construction as of 1 July 2021. The graphdoes not represent a forecasting of the world nuclear fleet over the next three decades as it does not speculate about future constructions.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 In the meantime, construction starts have been on a declining trend for a decade. Between
2011 and 2015, a total of 33 constructions were launched around the world, of which 14 in China(and three later abandoned), thus an average of six units per year were launched and sustained.
Between 2016 and 2020, constructions started at only 24 units, of which 11 in China, thus anaverage of less than five construction starts per year, significantly less than half than of thebuilding rate needed according to the PLEX Projection over the coming decade just to maintainthe current number of operating reactors in the world.

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FOCUS COUNTRIES
These “quick view”
indicators will be usedin the country sections
throughout the report.

The following chapter offers an in-depth assessment of ten countries: Belarus, China, Finland,
France, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom (U.K.) and the United States(U.S.). They represent one third of the nuclear countries, two thirds of the global reactor
fleet and four of the world’s five largest nuclear power producers. For other countries’ details,
see Annex 1.
Unless otherwise noted, data on the numbers of reactors operating and under construction
and their capacity (as of mid-2021) and nuclear’s share in electricity generation in 2020 are
from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Power Reactor Information System (IAEAPRIS) online database.57 Historical maximum figures indicate the year that the nuclear share in
the power generation of a given country was the highest since 1986, the year of the Chernobyl
disaster.

BELARUS FOCUS
Construction started in November 2013 at Belarus’s first nuclear reactor at Ostrovets power
plant, also called Belarusian-1. Construction of a second 1200 MWe AES-2006 reactor started
at the same site in June 2014. The first unit was completed and connected to the grid on
3 November 2020 and reached full power in January 2021.58 The first few weeks of operation
reignited the international controversy around the project, and according to the Lithuanian
Government three incidents of equipment failure occurred in the first month (later confirmed
by Belarus), including in the voltage transformer, the cooling system, and a steam noise
absorber.59 On 2 June 2021, Belarusian-1 received a commercial operating license.60
The European Commission issued a statement saying “It is regrettable that Belarus has decided
to start the commercial operation of the Astravets [Ostrovets] nuclear power plant, without
addressing all the safety recommendations contained in the 2018 EU stress test report. As the
57 - IAEA-PRIS, “Nuclear Share of Electricity Generation in 2020”, see https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/
NuclearShareofElectricityGeneration.aspx. Some of the figures indicated by the IAEA are not updated (e.g. the given 2020-number forFrance is wrong as it simply reissues the 2019-number, while the share has dropped significantly) or are very different from national
statistics, which WNISR uses in those cases.
58 - NEI, “Unit 1 of the Belarusian nuclear plant brought to 100% capacity”, 14 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsunit-1-of-the-belarusian-nuclear-plant-brought-to-100-capacity-8453244/, accessed 1 May 2021.
59 - Andrew Rettman, “Lithuania warns EU leaders on Belarus nuclear incidents”, EUobserver, 11 December 2020,see https://euobserver.com/foreign/150358, accessed 1 May 2021.
60 - Gosatomnadzor, “License for the Operation of Belarusian NPP Power Unit No. 1 is issued”, 2 June 2021,
see http://gosatomnadzor.mchs.gov.by/en/novosti/353948/, accessed 30 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Commission has repeatedly stated, all peer review recommendations should be implemented
by Belarus without delay.”61
The State Inspectorate for Nuclear Energy Safety of Lithuania (Vatesi) commented: “Thefact of issuing a licence does not change the position of Vatesi, that it is necessary to suspend
the operation of the Belarusian NPP, resolve nuclear safety problems and take the necessary
measures to improve its safety.”62
In October 2011, a contract was signed between the Belarus Nuclear Power Plant Construction
Directorate, and Russia’s AtomStroyExport (ASE). It defines the main terms of the generalcontract for the construction of two reactors as a turnkey project to be carried out by ASE,
with the first unit then scheduled to be commissioned in 2017 and the second in 2018.63
The Russian and Belarusian governments agreed that Russia would lend up to US$10 billion
for 25 years to finance 90 percent of the project. In July 2012, the contract was signed for theconstruction of the two reactors for an estimated cost of US$10 billion, including US$3 billion
for new infrastructure to accommodate the remoteness of Ostrovets in northern Belarus.64
Under the terms of the loan agreement Belarus should begin to repay the loan no later than
1 April 2021. Furthermore, the current loan rate for Belarus is a fixed 5.23 percent a year for halfof the selected funds and “six-month LIBOR65 in dollars (now 1.72 percent) plus 1.83 percent
per annum” for the other half. Belarus has also proposed increasing the repayment period
from 25 years (counting from the date of opening a credit line in 2011) to 35 years, but this has
so far been rejected by the Russian counterparts. In March 2021, the Russia-Belarusian loan
agreement was adjusted, and the loan extended by two years, until the end of 2022. In addition,a fixed interest rate on the loan is set at 3.3 percent a year, and the start date of the repaymentof the principal debt on the loan has been deferred from 1 April 2021 to 1 April 2023.66
The project assumes liability for the supply of all fuel and repatriation of spent fuel for the life of
the plant. The fuel is to be reprocessed in Russia and the separated wastes returned to Belarus.
Information is not available on the fate of the plutonium extracted during reprocessing, but it
is likely to remain in Russia.
It is difficult to estimate what the final construction price will be. On the one hand,President Lukashenko has said that cost would be below US$10 billion, but refused to reveal
the actual number stating: “It is a commercial secret. The contract price shouldn’t be madepublic.”67 Other sources suggest that the cost of the project has increased by 26 percent, to
61 - European Commission, “Statement by Commissioner Simson on the Astravets nuclear power plant in Belarus”, 2 June 2021,
see https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/simson/announcements/statement-commissioner-simson-astravetsnuclear-power-plant-belarus_en, accessed 12 August 2021.
62 - NEI, “Issue of operating licence for Belarus unit 1 prompts protests from Lithuania”, 8 June 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newsissue-of-operating-licence-for-belarus-unit-1-prompts-protests-from-lithuania-8803313, accessed 30 July 2021.
63 - WNN, “Contract signed for Belarusian reactors”, 11 October 2011, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Contractsigned-for-Belarusian-reactors, accessed 1 May 2021.
64 - NIW, “Belarus, Aided by Russia and Broke, Europe’s Last Dictatorship Proceeds With NPP”, 28 September 2012.
65 - The London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is a benchmark interest rate at which major global banks lend to one another in theinternational interbank market for short-term loans.
66 - NEI, “Russia amends terms for Belarus NPP loan agreement”, 29 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussiaamends-terms-for-belarus-npp-loan-agreement-8633297/, accessed 1 May 2021.
67 - BelTA , “Belarusian nuclear power plant to cost less than $10bn”, 19 April 2019, see https://eng.belta.by/president/view/belarusiannuclear-power-plant-to-cost-less-than-10bn-120494-2019/, accessed 1 May 2021.

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56 billion Russian rubles [US$750 million] in 2001-prices.68 The uncertainty of the actual costs
is compounded by the high volatility of exchange rates.
The project is the focus of international opposition and criticism, with formal complaints
from the Lithuanian government69 that has published a list of fundamental problems of the
project. These include claims of major construction issues, doubts about the site suitability
and accusations of non-compliance with some of its public engagement obligations
according to the Espoo Convention. Belarus was in 2017 found in non-compliance with the
Aarhus Convention for harassing members of civil society campaigning against the project.70
Then, in February 2019, a meeting of the Espoo Convention voted by 30 to 6 that Belarus had
violated the convention’s rules while choosing Ostrovets as the site for a nuclear power plant.71
The Belarussian government, in order to allay European concerns about Ostrovets, submitted
the project to a post-Fukushima nuclear stress test and produced a national report, which
was submitted to peer-review by a commission from the European Nuclear Safety Regulators
Group (ENSREG) and the European Commission. In July 2018, the European Commission
announced that the ENSREG report had been presented to the Belarussian authorities andthe executive summary was made public, which concludes that “although the report is overall
positive, it includes important recommendations that necessitate an appropriate follow up”.
For example, on the topic of assessment of severe accident management, it says, “the overall
concept of practical elimination of early and large releases should be more explicitly reflectedin an updated plant safety case.” It also gave recommendations for better seismic robustness.72
The Belarus authorities have not responded to the peer-review report and in June 2019 theCouncil of the European Union stated, “The Commission and ENSREG have been callingupon Belarus to swiftly prepare and present a National Action Plan to address the peerreview findings and recommendations, in line with the practice followed for previous stresstests within the EU and with third countries. At the moment of preparation of this report, theCommission and ENSREG are still awaiting reception of this plan.”73 The Lithuanian President
has called upon the European Commission to take all possible actions to ensure the safety ofthe power plant and in March 2020, the Belarus nuclear regulator discussed the national action
plan with ENSREG.74 A follow-up mission of ENSREG in February 2021 to discuss the (lackof) implementation of the stress-test recommendations was downscaled due to the COVID
68 - Charter 97, “Astravets NPP Becomes 12 Billion More Expensive In One Day”, 30 December 2016,see https://charter97.org/en/news/2016/12/30/236059/, accessed 1 May 2021.
69 - Bryan Bradley, “Lithuania Urges Belarus to Halt Nuclear Project on Safety Issues”, Bloomberg, 20 August 2013, see https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-08-20/lithuania-urges-belarus-to-halt-nuclear-project-on-safety-issues, accessed 1 May 2021.
70 - Economic Commission for Europe, “Findings and recommendations with regard to communication ACCC/C/2014/102 concerningcompliance by Belarus”, Economic and Social Council, United Nations, presented at Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on
Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – 58th Meeting 1013 September 2017, Adopted by the Compliance Committee 18 June 2017, Distributed 24 July 2017, see https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/
DAM/env/pp/compliance/CC-58/ece.mp.pp.c.1.2017.19.e.pdf, accessed 1 May 2021.
71 - NIW, “Briefs – Belarus”, 15 February 2019.
72 - ENSREG, “Belarus Stress Tests Peer Review–Executive Summary”, June 2018, see http://www.ensreg.eu/sites/default/files/
attachments/hlg_p2018-36_156_belarus_stress_test_prt_report_-_executive_summary_0.pdf, accessed 12 August 2021.
73 - European Atomic Energy Community, “Report on the implementation of the obligations under the Convention on Nuclear Safety– 8th Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties”, Council of the European Union, 19 June 2019, see https://data.consilium.europa.eu/
doc/document/ST-10365-2019-ADD-1/en/pdf, accessed 1 May 2021.
74 - BelTA , “Fulfillment of national action plan in wake of Belarusian nuclear power plant stress tests reviewed”, 11 March 2020,see https://atom.belta.by/en/belaes_en/view/fulfillment-of-national-action-plan-in-wake-of-belarusian-nuclear-power-plant-stresstests-reviewed-10573/, accessed 1 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 pandemic and was to be followed by a larger mission in May-June 202175, but had not beenreported as of mid-August 2021.
In February 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Ostrovets, which“encourages the Commission to work closely with the Belarusian authorities in order tosuspend the starting process until all EU stress test recommendations are fully implemented
and all necessary safety improvements are in place”.76
Belarus has historically been an importer of electricity from Russia and Ukraine. Lithuania
is trying to get its neighbors to follow the ban on nuclear power from Belarus and will use
the Espoo ruling to add weight to its claim. In February 2020, the Governments of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania put out a joint declaration that they would oppose electricity purchasesfrom the nuclear power plant.77 In addition, in May 2020, the Lithuanian Parliament passed a
resolution “on Energy Independence and the Threat Posed by the Astravyets Nuclear Power
Plant” proposing that the government take technical means to block electricity from Belarus.78
The sale of electricity to the West will be vital for the economics of the project, as increasing
domestic consumption or even sale back to Russia will raise significantly lower revenues, due
to lower prices. The inability to export the power will lead to significant overcapacity andconsequently President Alexander Lukashenko has said that the government needed to devise
ways to get the population to use more electricity, including retrofitting houses for electricheating and installing more water boilers.79
In November 2020, following the first production of power from Unit 1, Lithuanian transmission
system operator Litgrid ceased all power trading with Belarus.80 However, trading did restart,and Lithuania is seeking a permanent solution. In March the Government proposed a newtrilateral methodology for power trade with Russia to its Baltic neighbors with the hope that
this would lead to a blockade of electricity from Belarus.81 It is foreseen that the Baltic states
will be synchronized with the West-European electricity grid in 2025, delinking the region
from its dependency on Russian and Belarusian electricity.82

75 - BelTA , “Belarus to host ENSREG mission in May-June”, 15 February 2021, see https://eng.belta.by/economics/view/belarus-to-hostensreg-mission-in-may-june-137467-2021/, accessed 4 May 2021.
76 - European Parliament, “European Parliament Resolution of 11 February 2021 on the Safety of the nuclear power plant in Ostrovets(Belarus)”, 2021/2511(RSP), 11 February 2021, see https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0052_EN.html,
accessed 1 May 2021.
77 - Dominik Istrate, “Baltic States will not buy energy from Belarus NPP”, Emerging Europe, 13 February 2020,see https://emerging-europe.com/news/baltic-states-will-not-buy-energy-from-belarus-npp/, accessed 1 May 2021.
78 - Sniegė Balčiūnaitė, “Lithuanian parliament ups the ante on Belarus nuclear plant”, LRT, 5 May 2020,see https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1175343/lithuanian-parliament-ups-the-ante-on-belarus-nuclear-plant,
accessed 1 May 2021.
79 - Gary Peach, “Belarus Prepares Reactor Launch Despite Covid-19 Surge”, NIW, 29 May 2020.
80 - Andrius Sytas, “Lithuania stops Baltics power trade with Belarus, Russia over nuclear plant”, Reuters, 3 November 2020,see https://www.reuters.com/article/litgrid-belarus-idUSKBN27J2CA, accessed 1 May 2021.
81 - The Baltic Times, “Lithuania expects to agree with neighbors by July on Belarus’ nuclear power blockade”, 2 March 2021,
see https://www.baltictimes.com/lithuania_expects_to_agree_with_neighbors_by_july_on_belarus__nuclear_power_blockade/,
accessed 1 May 2021.
82 - Evelin Szőke, “Baltic states’ mega project of synchronisation to receive 720 mln euros of EU support”, CEENERGYNEWS,5 October 2020, see https://ceenergynews.com/electricity/baltic-states-mega-project-of-synchronisation-to-receive-720-mln-euros-ofeu-support/, accessed 4 May 2021.

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Following the start of commercial operation Lithuania initiated a legal process to take control
of power interconnections with Belarus. The Lithuania government hopes that restricting
electricity exports will delay the commercial operation of Belarus-2.

CHINA FOCUS
As of mid-2021, China had 52 operating reactors, including the China Experimental Fast
Reactor (CEFR) that was reconnected to the grid after a Long-Term Outage (LTO). Nuclear
plants generated 345 TWh in 2020, which is 4.4 percent more than in 2019, the lowest annual
growth rate since 2009. Nuclear plants provided a stable 4.9 percent of the electricity in the
country.
China operates by far the youngest large nuclear fleet in the world with 40 units, or almost fourin five, having been connected to the grid within the past ten years (see Figure 20).
Figure 20 · Age Distribution of Chinese Nuclear Fleet

Age of Chinese Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age40

0–10 Years
11–20 Years
21–30 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class952 Reactors
Mean Age
8.5 Years

3© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

As reported in WNISR2020, there continues to be uncertainty about the future path of nuclear
power in China. While the nuclear industry in China and elsewhere are advocating for a large
buildup of nuclear reactors in China, the government seems to be cautious. In July 2020, it
was reported that the “National Energy Administration (NEA) provided no details of new
nuclear construction in its recent 2020 National Energy Work Guiding Opinions, unlike inprevious years” and “the State Council, has mentioned almost nothing about newbuilds in its
government work plan”.83
Despite announcing ambitious plans for carbon emissions reduction, the 2021–2025 five-yearplan released in March 2021 only announced a goal of 70 GW total nuclear capacity by the end

83 - C.F. Yu, “Beijing’s Silence On Further Newbuilds”, NIW, 13 July 2020.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 of 2025.84 This goal should be seen in light of China missing the earlier 2020-target of 58 GW in
operation plus 30 GW under construction, with only 47.5 GW constructed and less than 16 GW
under construction at year-end. Also to be considered for context is the 2010 recommendationfrom the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) calling upon the government to set a
goal of 70 GW of nuclear power for 2020.85 During the deliberations over the five-year plan in
2020, the nuclear industry reportedly took “a back seat to renewables” with leading nuclear
developers shifting their business strategies “away from nuclear toward solar”.86
More significant for the future of nuclear energy is the disappointment expressed by nuclear
officials at this goal, calling on the government to accelerate development.87 The government’s
caution might be similar to the pause in construction and other decisions made in the aftermathof the multiple nuclear accidents at Fukushima.88 The Xinhua publication of the government’s
new emission goals, for example, showed that the government only called for “active and wellordered steps to develop nuclear energy on the basis of ensuring its safe use”.89 In January 2021,
China’s energy regulator acknowledged “concerns about ‘quality management’…noting thatsome reactor projects had been launched without adequate preparation”.90
A further reason for uncertainty has been the ongoing anticorruption campaign. In
October 2020, the top nuclear official in China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) was
indicted for misconduct.91 According to a listing in Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW)92, this was
the fifth indictment of an NEA chief and the 12th among its senior officials, in eight years; atleast a dozen nuclear executives have been indicted since 2018, including the former chairmanof China General Nuclear Technology Development Co. More recently, an executive at China
National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has been under investigation for graft.93 This official
was “previously an executive at an asset-management firm under China Nuclear Engineering& Construction Corporation”, which merged with CNNC in 2018, when he was “promoted to
deputy chief economist at CNNC, managing costs in that capacity”.94

84 - Xinhua, “China pledges solid efforts on peaking carbon emissions, carbon neutrality”, 5 March 2021; and David Stanway, “China
should speed nuclear development to meet carbon goals: industry legislators”, Reuters, 8 March 2021,
see https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-china-parliament-nuclearpower-idUKKBN2B00C0, accessed 29 August 2021.
85 - David Stanway, “China nuclear body recommends 2020 target of 70 GW”, Reuters, 24 November 2010,see https://www.reuters.com/article/china-nuclear-idUSBJI00247420101124, accessed 23 May 2021.
86 - C.F. Yu, “China: Beijing’s Silence on Further Newbuilds”, NIW, 23 October 2020.
87 - David Stanway, “China should speed nuclear development to meet carbon goals: industry legislators”, Reuters, 8 March 2021,
op. cit.
88 - Amy King and M.V. Ramana, “The China Syndrome? Nuclear Power Growth and Safety After Fukushima”, Asian Perspective, 2015,see http://journals.rienner.com/doi/abs/10.5555/0258-9184-39.4.607, accessed 29 August 2021.
89 - Xinhua, “China Pledges Solid Efforts on Peaking Carbon Emissions, Carbon Neutrality”, March 2021; and NEI, “China’s new FiveYear Plan aims for carbon neutrality by 2060 ”, 9 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newschinas-new-five-year-planaims-for-carbon-neutrality-by-2060-8584788, accessed 29 August 2021.
90 - David Stanway, “China Should Speed Nuclear Development to Meet Carbon Goals: Industry Legislators”, Reuters, March 2021,
op. cit.
91 - C.F. Yu, “Top NEA Nuclear Official Indicted on Corruption Charges”, NIW, 30 October 2020.
92 - Ibidem.
93 - Caixin, “Senior Nuclear Official Falls Under Graft Probe”, 22 April 2021, see https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-04-22/seniornuclear-official-falls-under-graft-probe-101697524.html, accessed 23 May 2021.
94 - Shunsuke Tabeta, “Xi ramps up purge of former military-industrial chiefs”, Nikkei Asia, 11 May 2021,
see https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Xi-ramps-up-purge-of-former-military-industrial-chiefs, accessed 23 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Of the 18 reactors under construction by mid-2021, two have been ongoing since 2012 (Shidao
Bay 1-1 and 1-2), three have been ongoing since 2015 (Fangchenggang-3, Hongyanhe-6,
and Fuqing-6), one since 2016 (Fangchenggang-4), one since 2017 (Xiapu-1), four since2019 (Taipingling-1, Zhangzhou-1, Shidao Bay 2-1 and 2-2), and four since 2020 (Taipingling-2,Sanaocun-1, Xiapu-2 and Zhangzhou-2); three started construction during the first half year of2021 (Changjiang-3, Tianwan-7, and Xudabao-3). Notably, there are no AP1000 reactors underconstruction, with the State Council reportedly rejecting arguments by AP1000 proponents
in September 2020.95 This is likely a result of the experience with the projects at Haiyang andSanmen reported in earlier issues of WNISR.
The startup of at least four reactors is delayed. When construction of Hongyanhe-6 started in2015, it was scheduled to begin operating in 2020.96 In January 2020, China General Nuclear
Power Corporation (CGN) announced that operation of Hongyanhe-6 was delayed by at least
six months to 2022.97 Fuqing-6 was scheduled to be completed in 2020; it is now expected
to start up later in 2021.98 However, since most of the units started building after 2016 andinformation on the respective construction status is not always available, it is difficult to assess
the exact construction status.
The most prominent among the delayed reactors are the twin High Temperature Gas Cooled
Reactor (HTGR) units (Shidao Bay 1-1 and 1-2) under construction since December 2012.
The builder and operator of the units announced at that time that construction would“take 50 months, with 18 months for building, 18 months for installation and 14 months forpre‑commissioning”.99 We are now past more than twice that time period and the reactors still
have not commenced operation. According to an update from January 2021, hot testing of thereactors had started, and the units were scheduled to start up later this year.100
Well before these construction delays, the cost of electricity from Shidao Bay had been
projected to be 40 percent higher than that from light water reactors.101 The poor economic
prospects might be driving China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC), one of the partners in
the Shidao Bay 1 project, to start plans for building larger HTR units to take advantage of
economies of scale. In November 2020, CNNC put out a tender soliciting technology partners
to construct two 600 MW HTR units.102 It is hard to imagine that even this increase in scale
would make HTRs competitive; estimates by the Idaho National Laboratory in the U.S. suggestthat the costs for fuel fabrication, operations, and maintenance alone would be three times
95 - C. F. Yu and Phil Chaffee, “Does the Rise of the Hualong-One Rule Out Further AP1000s?”, NIW, 11 September 2020.
96 - WNN, “Grid connection for Hongyanhe 4”, 1 April 2016, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Grid-connection-forHongyanhe-4-0104164.html, accessed 27 May 2020.
97 - CGN, “Inside Information - Operation Briefings for the Fourth Quarter of 2019”, 6 January 2020, see http://en.cgnp.
com.cn/encgnp/c20191226/202001/917f4904f06d4826be1ae98e96780703/files/0627a0191ddb4a07bcfe0b4764a196e4.pdf,
accessed 12 January 2020.
98 - WNN, “Construction milestones at new Chinese units”, 5 January 2017, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NNConstruction-milestones-at-new-Chinese-units-0501175.html, accessed 28 February 2017.
99 - David Dalton, “China Begins Construction Of First Generation IV HTR-PM Unit”, NucNet, 7 January 2013, see http://www.nucnet.
org/all-the-news/2013/01/07/china-begins-construction-of-first-generation-iv-htr-pm-unit, accessed 10 January 2013.
100 - WNN, “Hot functional testing of HTR-PM reactors starts”, 4 January 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hotfunctional-testing-of-HTR-PM-reactors-starts, accessed 4 January 2021.
101 - C. F. Yu, “CNEC-CFHI Deal — Boosting the HTGR Or Chinese Manufacturing?”, NIW, 9 September 2016.
102 - C.F. Yu, “CNNC Rolls Out Additional HTGR Plans”, NIW, 13 November 2020.

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the corresponding costs for light water reactors.103 CNNC’s interest in the HTGR is therefore
puzzling, especially in light of the failure of the first HTR-PM project to meet schedules andcost estimates.
China’s hopes for nuclear reactor exports also seem to be fading away. During the past decade,the Fukushima accidents were used by Chinese officials to argue that the country had acomparative advantage; in 2013, a former Administrator at the CNEA stated “history has given
China an opportunity to overtake the world’s nuclear energy and nuclear technology powers”.104
In 2016, CNNC’s president announced that “China aims to build 30 overseas nuclear power
units… by 2030”.105 That goal is clearly beyond reach today and most agreements that China
had entered into with various countries “have not progressed much past the signing stage”.106
The country has no firm export prospects except to Pakistan.
Accordingly, CGN has simply abandoned any export ambition over the coming years, andstates in a May-2020 supplement to the 2019-Annual Report107:
In view of the recent international development trend of nuclear power, the Company has
neither determined any specific targets for overseas market exploration, nor commenced
any overseas projects, and does not expect to have any overseas investment projects in thenext few years. As a result, the proceeds specified to be used for overseas market explorationin the Prospectus have not been utilized. Given the orderly progression of the Company’s
construction of nuclear power projects under construction, in order to increase the efficiency
of use of proceeds and reduce capital deposition, on May 20, 2020, the Company, as approvedby the 2019 Annual General Meeting, has changed the use of the remaining unused proceeds.
Accordingly, approximately RMB966.739 million [US$152 million] of the unused proceeds to
be used for overseas market exploration as specified in the Prospectus will instead be entirely
utilized for the construction of Fangchenggang Units 3 and 4, and the interests and exchange
income thereby generated will also be used for the construction of Fangchenggang Units 3
and 4.

In the meantime, renewable energy capacity in China continues to grow rapidly. According
to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), total installed renewable capacity
increased by nearly 18 percent in the past year, going from 759 GW in 2019 to 894 GW in
2020.108 The largest component of that expansion was in wind capacity, which increased from210 GW in 2019 to 282 GW in 2020, of which offshore capacity is 9 GW; solar capacity wentfrom 205 GW in 2019 to 254 GW in 2020.

103 - Edwin Lyman, “‘Advanced’ Isn’t Always Better—Assessing the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of Non-Light-Water
Nuclear Reactors”, Union of Concerned Scientists, March 2021, p.88, see https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/advanced-isnt-alwaysbetter, accessed 29 August 2021.
104 - David Stanway, “Analysis: China needs Western help for nuclear export ambitions”, Reuters, 17 December 2013,see http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-britain-china-analysis-idUSBRE9BG06B20131217, accessed 25 February 2017.
105 - Xinhua, “China plans 30 overseas nuclear power units by 2030”, as published by China.org.cn, 1 March 2016,see http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-03/01/content_37910282.htm, accessed 25 August 2021.
106 - C.F. Yu, “Is CGN’s Setback Overseas Reason to Merge With CNNC?”, NIW, 18 September 2020.
107 - CGN Power, “Supplemental Announcement—Additional Information to the 2019 Annual Report and Update on the
Use of Proceeds”, 22 July 2020, see http://en.cgnp.com.cn/encgnp/c20191226/202007/fd443aa37fd140c488117b43cdfab7a5/
files/48d54962a0a44d9c8a7f5ec50a0a18d0.pdf, accessed 29 May 2021.
108 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, International Renewable Energy Agency, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/-/
media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2021.pdf, accessed 5 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 In comparison, with two reactors starting up, installed nuclear capacity increased by 2 GW in
2020. According to provisional numbers, this is by far the lowest increase in all major sourcesof power with hydropower going up by 13 GW and thermal (coal) power expanding by 56 GW.109
The reasons for the expansion of coal have been traced to a number of incentives.110 Investment
trends, according to the China Electricity Council, are also important. When 2020 is comparedwith 2019, investment in completed thermal power projects has declined by 27 percent andnuclear energy projects by 23 percent, whereas investment in completed hydro power and wind
power projects went up by 19 percent and 71 percent respectively.111
When it comes to power generation trends, wind and solar plants injected 467 TWh and
261 TWh to the grid respectively, according to the China Electricity Council.112 In 2020,
electricity generated by wind turbines exceeded the nuclear output by 28 percent, and solar
energy represented over 70 percent of nuclear energy’s contribution.

FINLAND FOCUS
Finland operates four units which in 2020 supplied 22.4 TWh of electricity, compared with
22.9 TWh in 2019 which was the highest production ever in the country. The nuclear sharerepresented 33.9 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2020, compared to 34.7 percent in 2019,
and a peak of 38.4 percent in 1986.
Finland’s fifth reactor, the 1.6 GW EPR at Olkiluoto (OL3), which has been under construction
since August 2005, was originally scheduled to begin operations in 2009, and as previously,
during the past year has suffered further delays. In mid-2020, the schedule was for gridconnection at the end of January 2021 and commercial operation by 31 May 2021, 16 years after
construction start and 12 years later than originally planned.113 These target dates were notachieved, and the plant is now scheduled to be connected to the grid in October 2021.114
Finland has adopted different nuclear technologies and suppliers, as two of its operating
reactors are modified VVER-V213 built by Russian contractors at Loviisa, while two are AAIII,
BWR-2500 built by Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) at Olkiluoto. The OL3 EPR contractor is AREVA.
The average age of the four operating reactors is 42.3 years. In January 2017, operator TVO(Teollisuuden Voima Oyj) filed an application for a 20-year license extension for Olkiluoto-1
and -2 (OL1, OL2), which were connected to the grid in 1978 and 1980 respectively.115 On
109 - China Electricity Council, “2020 electricity & other energy statistics (preliminary)”, China Energy Portal, 22 January 2021
(in Chinese and English), see https://chinaenergyportal.org/2020-electricity-other-energy-statistics-preliminary/, accessed 5 May 2021.
110 - Lauri Myllyvirta, “A New Coal Boom in China—New Coal Plant Permitting and Proposals Accelerate”, Briefing, Centre for
Research on Energy and Clean Air, June 2020, see https://energyandcleanair.org/publications/coal-power-projects-accelerate-aftercovid-19-lockdown-a-new-coal-boom-in-china/, accessed 7 May 2021.
111 - China Electricity Council, “2020 Electricity & Other Energy Statistics (Preliminary)”, Chine Energy Portal, January 2021, op. cit.
112 - Ibidem.
113 - Roger Fry, “TVO reporte le démarrage d’Olkiluoto 3 (1,6 GW) à mai 2021”, Montel, 2 July 2020 (in French), see https://www.
montelnews.com/fr/story/tvo-reporte-le-dmarrage-dolkiluoto-3-16-gw-%C3%A0-mai-2021/1128407, accessed 13 July 2021.
114 - TVO, “The terms of the OL3 EPR project completion have been agreed”, 17 May 2020, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/
pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/thetermsoftheol3eprprojectcompletionhavebeenagreed.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
115 - TVO, “New operating license applied for Olkiluoto 1 and 2 plant units”, Press Release, 26 January 2017,see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2017/hNRykwgEO.html, accessed 13 July 2021.

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20 September 2018, the Cabinet approved the lifetime extension for both units to operate until
2038.116
A “severe abnormal event” occurred at the OL2 reactor on 10 December 2020, that
led to reactor shut down.117 What the Finnish radiation and nuclear safety regulator
Säteilyturvakeskus (STUK) called an exceptional safety event, with a rise in radiation levels
inside the containment, caused a full-scale emergency response at STUK and at Olkiluoto. As
of mid-2021, the situation was stable and the unit in a safe state. TVO and STUK reported
that there was no radioactive release to the environment.118 The event cause was confirmed on
11 December 2020 due to a fault in the purification system in the primary circuit when filter
material caused a temporary rise of the radiation levels in the circuit. According to STUK there
was no nuclear fuel damage.119
In March 2014, Russian state nuclear operator Rosatom, through subsidiary company RAOS
Voima Oy, completed the purchase of 34 percent of the Finnish company Fennovoima for
an undisclosed price,120 and then in April 2014 a “binding decision to construct” a 1200 MW
AES‑2006 reactor was announced. A construction license for the reactor was expected in
2021121 and construction was to begin in the same year, with operation of the plant currently
scheduled for 2028. Progress was made during the past year according to Fennovoima, inparticular its near completion of the safety review, however, there have been revisions to theconstruction start and completion dates.
In April 2021, Fennovoima reported that it had moved significantly towards being granted
a construction license by the end of 2021.122 However, three weeks later it reported that
it was now aiming for a license in summer 2022. In its updated application to STUK for aconstruction license on 28 April 2021, it reported construction start now scheduled for 2023,
and commercial operation by 2029.123 Construction of Hanhikivi-1 is now ten years behindthe original schedule.124 Estimated costs for the project have increased from €6.5–7 billion(US$7.7‑8.3 billion) to €7–7.5 billion (US$8.3–8.8 billion).125 The construction contract with
116 - TVO, “Finnish Government Approves Extension Of Operating Licences For OL1 And OL2 Plant Units”, Press Release,
20 September 2018, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2018/h7tODvf1I.html,
accessed 13 July 2021.
117 - STUK, “The abnormal operational occurrence at Olkiluoto nuclear power plant – the unit is stable”, 10 December 2020,see https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/-/the-abnormal-operational-occurrence-at-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant-the-unit-is-stable,
accessed 13 July 2021.
118 - STUK, “The unit 2 at Olkiluoto will be shut down to a cold state so that the cause of the fault can be determined - the situation isstable”, 10 December 2020, see https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/-/the-unit-2-at-olkiluoto-will-be-shut-down-to-a-cold-state-so-that-thecause-of-the-fault-can-be-determined-the-situation-is-stable, accessed 13 July 2021.
119 - STUK, “The event at Olkiluoto nuclear power plant yesterday caused no threat to the safety of people or environment”,
11 December 2020, see https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/-/the-event-at-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant-yesterday-caused-no-threat-to-thesafety-of-people-or-environment, accessed 13 July 2021.
120 - Fennovoima, “Rosatom acquired 34% of Fennovoima”, Press Release, 27 March 2014.
121 - WNN, “Fennovoima changes spur progress with Hanhikivi project”, 25 March 2020, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Hanhikivi-project-progresses-following-Fennovoima, accessed 13 July 2021.
122 - Fennovoima, “Fennovoima’s year 2020”, 7 April 2021, see https://www.fennovoima.fi/sites/default/files/media/documents/
Fennovoimas_Year_2020_report.pdf, accessed 13 July 2021.
123 - Fennovoima, “Fennovoima updates the Construction License Application”, Press Release, 28 April 2021,
see https://www.fennovoima.fi/en/press-releases/fennovoima-updates-construction-license-application, accessed 13 July 2021.
124 - NEI, “Fennovoima issues progress report on Hanhikivi” 26 March 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsfennovoima-issues-progress-report-on-hanhikivi-7839412, accessed 13 July 2021.
125 - Fennovoima, “Fennovoima updates the Construction License Application”, 28 April 2021, op. cit.

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RAOS Project Oy is a fixed-priced contract, so costs are due to expenses from Fennovoima’s
own operations. A Review by STUK of the licensing documentation to be submitted as part of
the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report for the reactor is underway but has experienced further
delays.126

Olkiluoto-3 (OL3)In December 2003, Finland became the first country in Western Europe to order a new nuclear
reactor since 1988. AREVA NP, then a joint venture owned 66 percent by AREVA and 34 percent
by Siemens, was contracted to build the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) at OL3 under afixed-price, turnkey contract with the utility TVO. Siemens quit the consortium in March 2011
and announced in September 2011 that it was abandoning the nuclear sector entirely.127 Afterthe 2015 technical bankruptcy of the AREVA Group, in which the cost overruns of Olkiluoto
had played a large part, the majority shareholder, the French Government, decided to integrate
the reactor-building division under “new-old name” Framatome into a subsidiary majorityowned by state utility EDF.
However, EDF made it clear that it would not take over the billions of euros’ liabilities linked
to the costly Finnish AREVA adventure.128 Thus, it was decided that the financial liability forOL3 and associated risks stay with AREVA S.A. after the sale of AREVA NP and the creation ofa new company AREVA Holding, now named Orano, that will focus on nuclear fuel and waste
management services, very similar to the old COGEMA. In July 2017, the French Government
confirmed that it had completed its €2 billion (US$20182.3 billion) capital increase,129 most ofwhich was to cover the costs to AREVA of the OL3 investment.
The OL3 project was financed essentially on the balance sheets of the Finland’s leading firms
and heavy energy users as well as a number of municipalities under a unique arrangementthat makes them liable for the plant’s indefinite capital costs for an indefinite period, whether
or not they get the electricity—a capex “take-or-pay contract”—in addition to the additionalbillions incurred by AREVA under the fixed price contract.
OL3 construction started in August 2005, with operations planned from 2009. However, thatdate—and other dates—passed.
From the beginning, the OL3 project was plagued with countless management and qualitycontrol issues. Not only did it prove difficult to carry out concreting and welding to technicalspecifications, but the use of sub-contractors and workers from over 50 nationalities madecommunication and oversight extremely complex (see previous WNISR editions).

126 - STUK, “Supervision of Fennovoima’s nuclear power plant project January – April 2021”, 30 April 2021, see https://www.stuk.fi/
stuk-valvoo/ydinturvallisuus/stukin-kolmannesvuosiraportointi/uusien-hankkeiden-valvonta, accessed 13 July 2021.
127 - WNN, “Siemens quits the nuclear game”, 19 September 2011, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Siemens-quits-thenuclear-game, accessed 13 July 2021
128 - Jean-Michel Bezat, “EDF pose ses conditions au rachat des réacteurs d’Areva”, Le Monde, 19 May 2015.
129 - Jean-Michel Belot and Richard Lough, “Areva says French state completes two billion-euro capital increase”, Reuters, 12 July 2017,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-arevasa-capital-idUSKBN19X2S9, accessed 13 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 After further multiple delays, TVO announced in June 2018 that grid connection was plannedfor May 2019 with “regular electricity generation” in September 2019.130 In April 2019, fuelloading was pushed further to August 2019. TVO’s plans for grid connection in October 2019and electricity generation by January 2020 were considered by WNISR2019 as highly
optimistic.131
In July 2019, TVO announced that it had once again delayed operations for OL3 by six
months.132 The startup date was moved to July 2020 by nuclear plant supplier the AREVASiemens Consortium. TVO announced that nuclear fuel was scheduled to be loaded into
the reactor in January 2020 and the first connection to the grid was to be in April 2020. By
November 2019, the revised schedule for OL3 start had slipped a further six weeks, according
to TVO.133 The delays were reported to be due to final verification of the mechanical, electricaland Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems.
In December 2019, the AREVA-Siemens Consortium informed TVO134 that OL3 would beconnected to the grid in November 2020 with regular electricity generation from March 2021.135
Nuclear fuel loading was planned for June 2020. The delays were reported to be due to slow
progress of system tests and shortcomings in spare-part deliveries.136 Among other things in
the tests of auxiliary diesel generators some faulty components were found.137
On 8 April 2020, TVO announced that it had applied to the regulator STUK, for approval
for fuel loading.138 It was expected to take two months. At the same time, TVO revealed that“a significant amount of measures [were] taken to prevent the spreading of the coronavirus
epidemic (COVID-19) in order to minimize the effects of pandemic risk to the project. The
coronavirus pandemic may have significantly added uncertainty to the progress of the
project.”139 As a consequence, fuel loading would not take place in June 2020 as planned, and “itis possible that the regular electricity production will be delayed respectively. AREVA-Siemens
consortium will update the schedule for OL3 EPR unit as soon as spreading and effects of thecoronavirus pandemic are known.”140
130 - TVO, “OL3 EPR’s regular electricity generation starts in September 2019”, Press Release, 13 June 2018,see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2018/hAZ20lOtQ.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
131 - WNN, “TVO starts work to resolve Olkiluoto 3 vibration issue”, 23 May 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
TVO-starts-work-to-resolve-Olkiluoto-3-vibration-i, accessed 13 July 2021.
132 - TVO, “OL3 EPR’s regular electricity generation starts in July 2020”, Press Release, 17 July 2019,see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2019/h3BCeyaya.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
133 - TVO, “Plant supplier updates the schedule of OL3 project”, Press Release, 8 November 2019,see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2019/h0aOkf1fA.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
134 - YLE, “Olkiluoto 3 reactor delayed yet again, now 12 years behind schedule”, 20 December 2019, see https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/
news/olkiluoto_3_reactor_delayed_yet_again_now_12_years_behind_schedule/11128489, accessed 13 July 2021.
135 - TVO, “OL3 EPR’s regular electricity generation starts in March 2021”, Press Release, 19 December 2019, see https://www.
tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2020/ol3eprsregularelectricitygenerationstartsinmarch2021.html,
accessed 13 July 2021.
136 - Ibidem.
137 - YLE, “Olkiluoto 3 reactor delayed yet again, now 12 years behind schedule”, 20 December 2019, see https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/
news/olkiluoto_3_reactor_delayed_yet_again_now_12_years_behind_schedule/11128489, accessed 13 July 2021.
138 - TVO, “TVO has submitted OL3 EPR unit nuclear fuel loading permission application”, Press Release,
8 April 2020, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2020/
tvohassubmittedol3eprunitnuclearfuelloadingpermissionapplication.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
139 - Ibidem.
140 - Ibidem.

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These delays and uncertainties prompted a revision downwards of TVO’s credit rating byStandard & Poor’s, with the timing and effect on OL3 commissioning “unclear” andwith expectations (...) that this will further increase project costs and postpone TVO’s
deleveraging, increasing the risk that the AREVA (not rated) is unable to maintain sufficient
funds for related obligations, including the two-year guarantee period. The negative
outlook reflects the risk that TVO’s financial flexibility could diminish as a result of weaker
counterparties or additional delays that could further increase already-high financial
leverage.141

With the delay in fuel loading, and in a further sign of potential and additional financial risks
for delay in OL3 commissioning, credit rating agency Fitch revised TVO’s outlook from stableto negative, and stated that, “A significant delay could be negative for TVO’s cash flow as thecompany has to service debt related to OL3”.142 The agency noted:
There is a risk that the settlement agreement signed with the supplier consortium (AREVA
NP, AREVA GmbH, Siemens AG (A/Stable) and AREVA Group’s parent AREVA SA) in March2018 would not protect TVO from financial impacts should the start of power production
be delayed beyond June 2021, because the consortium has not yet assigned a new date forthe fuel loading. After this date, TVO would not be entitled to penalty payments from the
supplier consortium under the settlement agreement anymore.143

As reported by WNISR2019 (see WNISR2019 – Finland Focus), TVO and AREVA-Siemens signed
a settlement agreement in March 2018, which states that TVO would receive compensation of€450 million (US$515 million) from the supplier consortium. The settlement further includes
a penalty mechanism, under which the supplier consortium pays additional penalties to TVO
in case of further delays beyond 2019. However, these are capped at €400 million (US$458
million), which were reached in June 2021. With delays beyond June 2021, the agreement does
not cover the financial impact on TVO. It was reported in April 2020, that AREVA was currently
making arrangements in order to secure funding until the end of the project (including theguarantee period).144
In March 2021, fuel was finally loaded into the OL3 reactor, with grid connection announced
in mid-May 2021 for October 2021.145 By the end of July 2021, startup had already been pushed
back by another month to November 2021, “due to turbine overhaul”.146

141 - TVO, “Standard & Poor’s has downgraded TVO’s long term credit rating to BB”, 15 April 2020, see https://www.tvo.fi/
en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2020/standardpoorshasdowngradedtvoslongtermcreditratingtobb.html,
accessed 13 July 2021.
142 - Fitch, “Fitch Revises Teollisuuden Voima Oyj’s Outlook to Negative; Affirms at ‘BBB-’”, 20 April 2020,see https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitch-revises-teollisuuden-voima-oyj-outlook-to-negative-affirms-atbbb-20-04-2020, accessed 13 July 2021.
143 - Ibidem.
144 - Ibidem; and TVO, “OL3 EPR’s schedule work continues”, 2 July 2020, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/
pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2020/ol3eprsscheduleworkcontinues.html, accessed 13 July 2021.
145 - TVO, “The terms of the OL3 EPR project completion have been agreed”, 17 May 2021, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/
pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/thetermsoftheol3eprprojectcompletionhavebeenagreed.html, accessed 22 August 2021.
146 - TVO, “The regular electricity production of the OL3 EPR will be postponed for a month due to turbine
overhaul”, 30 July 2021, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/
theregularelectricityproductionoftheol3eprwillbepostponedforamonthduetoturbineoverhaul.html, accessed 22 August 2021.

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On 17 May 2021, TVO announced that it had reached a consensus settlement agreement with
the Areva−Siemens consortium.147 Negotiations had been underway since summer 2020 on theterms of the OL3 EPR project-completion. Critical to the goal was agreement for an additional€600 million to be made available from the AREVA companies’ trust mechanism as of the
beginning of January 2021. Other key issues agreed included that both parties are to cover
their own costs from July 2021 until end of February 2022, and that in case the consortiumcompanies do not complete the OL3 EPR project until the end of February 2022, they would
pay additional compensation for delays, depending on the date of completion. Fitch reported
that it may revise TVO’s outlook from negative to stable.148

Faulty Pressurizer Safety Relief Valves
On 9 July 2020, when yet another potentially significant delay was announced incommissioning of OL3, STUK reported that defects in the pressurizer safety relief valves had
been identified.149 The valve on which the leak was found was mechanically damaged and after
further checks similar cracks were detected in two of five other valves. STUK announced thatthe problem was serious and should be fully investigated before proceeding with nuclear fuelloading. The Sierion valves were disassembled, removed from OL3 and returned to the German
manufacturer for detailed analysis.
Pressurizer safety relief valves are F1A classified (must-not-fail) because it is necessary toreach a controlled state under Plant Condition Category (PCC) conditions. The EPR valves are
required to perform vital functions in both routine and accident conditions.150
The safety relief valves type VS99 (Sierion) installed in OL3 were manufactured by the German
company Sempell,151 and their quality was confirmed in 2016–2017 by Erlangen Center owned
by Framatome. As a result of the discovery, Sempell valves installed in the EPRs at Taishan-1
and -2 in China and Flamanville-3 in France are to be investigated. Sempell valves are also due
to be installed in the Hinkley Point C EPRs. As of early July 2020, the only disclosure from
TVO was that “cracks were detected in the pilot valves of the pressurizer safety relief valves”.152

147 - NEI, “TVO and Areva-Siemens reach consensus on OL3”, 20 May 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newstvo-andareva-siemens-reach-consensus-on-ol3-8757426, accessed 13 July 2021.
148 - Fitch, “Agreed Terms of OL3 Completion Reduce Negative Rating Pressure on TVO”, 31 May 2021, see https://www.
fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/agreed-terms-of-ol3-completion-reduce-negative-rating-pressure-on-tvo-21-05-2021,
accessed 13 July 2021.
149 - onOZE, “Ponowne wstrzymanie budowy bloku elektrowni jadrowej Olkiluoto-3”, 9 July 2020 (in Finnish),see https://onoze.pl/2020/07/09/ponowne-wstrzymanie-budowy-bloku-elektrowni-jadrowej-olkiluoto-3/, accessed 13 July 2021.
150 - UK-EPR, “Fundamental Safety Overview — Volume 2: Design and Safety — Chapter E: The Reactor Coolant System andRelated Systems — Section E.4.5. Pressuriser Relief Line”, 2007, see http://www.epr-reactor.co.uk/ssmod/liblocal/docs/V3/
Volume%202%20-%20Design%20and%20Safety/2.E%20-%20The%20Reactor%20Coolant%20System%20and%20Related%20
Systems/2.E.4/2.E.4.5%20-%20Pressuriser%20Relief%20Line%20-%20v2.pdf, accessed 13 July 2021.
151 - Emerson, “Sempell Nuclear Valves Secure leak-tight performance and 100% reliability for high pressure, high temperatureapplications”, Sempell Nuclear Product Brochure, VCPBR-03316-EN, 2017.
152 - TVO, “TVO Newsletter—Respirator masks worn at OL3”, 2 July 2020, see https://uutiset.tvo.fi/g/l/290020/0/0/2652/1012/7,
accessed 13 July 2021.

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In October 2020, STUK confirmed that the damage to the safety release valves had been causedby stress corrosion cracking.153 The valves would be required to be repaired before nuclear fuelloading, and would be eventually required to be replaced.
STUK granted a fuel loading permit for the OL3 EPR on 26 March 2021.154 It started on
27 March 2021.155
OL3 was considered by the nuclear industry as a showcase for next-generation reactor
technology with TVO and AREVA predicting 56 months to completion. In September 2020,
after confirming further delays to the operation date for OL3, the project Director,
Jouni Silvennoinen, said he would not guess the total costs and losses and that in terms of the
project being a failure, “We do not comment.”156
Over a decade ago WNISR considered that the project could lead to a crisis,157 which has turned
out to be rather accurate as its total construction time to commercial operation on the current
schedule of February 2022, will be 212 months or 13 years behind schedule.

153 - Leila Fernández Thévoz and Wilhelm Zakrisson, “Fissures sur les soupapes de l’EPR Olkiluoto 3 – régulateur”, Montel,
23 October 2020 (in French), see https://www.montelnews.com/fr/news/1160611/fissures-sur-les-soupapes-de-lepr-olkiluoto-3-rgulateur, accessed 1 August 2021.
154 - STUK, “STUK: The third nuclear reactor of Olkiluoto received the fuel loading permit”, Press Release, 26 March 2021,
see https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/-/stuk-the-third-nuclear-reactor-of-olkiluoto-received-the-fuel-loading-permit, accessed 14 July 2021.
155 - TVO, “Teollisuuden Voima Oyj Interim Report January–March 2021”, Press Release, 22 April 2021, see https://www.
tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/teollisuudenvoimaoyjinterimreportjanuary-march2021.html,
accessed 14 July 2021.
156 - Iltalehti. “OL3-ydinvoimala ei valmistu sitten millään – kyseessä täydellinen epäonnistuminen? ‘Emme kommentoi’” [“Then theOL3 nuclear power plant will not be completed at all - is it a complete failure? ‘We do not comment’”] 4 September 2020 (in Finnish),see https://www.iltalehti.fi/talous/a/c92d4524-8a93-4626-bda2-0d3f41d4bf8f, accessed 13 July 2021.
157 - WNISR, “The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009”, August 2009, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-2009-.
html; and Steve Thomas, “The EPR in Crisis”, Public Services International Research Unit, Business School, University ofGreenwich, London, November 2010, see https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/4699/3/(ITEM_4699)_THOMAS_2010-11-E-EPR.pdf,
both accessed 13 July 2021.

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FRANCE FOCUS
This report constitutes a Copernican moment for the energy world.
From now on, we have the confirmation that moving towards 100%
renewable electricity is technically possible. This is a major conceptual
evolution and a revolution for our collective representation concerning
our electricity mix.158
Barbara Pompili
Minister for the Ecological Transition
Comments on a joint IEA-RTE report
27 January 2021

Introduction
The year 2020 was particularly difficult for the French nuclear sector. The COVID-19 pandemic
impacted the industry not only by reducing electricity consumption and increasing costs, but
the operation of nuclear power plants was significantly impacted by the repeated reshufflingof the outage schedules. Output plunged to the lowest level in 27 years. While no reactor has
been shut down explicitly due to the impact of COVID-19, nuclear power has turned out very
sensitive to effects, like the need to have very large numbers of workers on-site during refuelingand maintenance outages.
The credit-rating agencies did not wait for year-end and in June 2020 downgraded EDF to
BBB+ (lower medium grade) notably because of “lower-than-expected availability of nuclear
reactors”. However, due to the “likelihood of government support”, EDF is awarded threenotches over its “Stand Alone Credit Profile”, which is now lowered BB+ (non-investment grade
or “junk”). EDF’s U.K. subsidiary EDF Energy was downgraded to “junk”.159“Without civil nuclear no military nuclear,
without military nuclear no civil nuclear.”
President Emmanuel Macron
At the end of 2020, President Emmanuel Macron visited the Creusot Forge that had beenfighting for several years with a scandalous history of irregularities and falsifications in the
documentation of thousands of forged pieces spanning over several decades (see Nuclear
Power and Criminal Energy). He gave a symbolic speech that was meant to reinforce theunconditional support of the French state to the struggling nuclear industry, civil and military.
“Our energy and ecological future”, “our economic and industrial future”, “the strategic

158 - André Joffre, “100% EnR, c’est possible : Barbara Pompili salue la publication du rapport de l’AIE et de RTE et évoque un moment
copernicien”, Tecsol Blog, 28 January 2021 (in French), see https://tecsol.blogs.com/mon_weblog/2021/01/100-enr-cest-possiblebarbara-pompili-salue-la-publication-du-rapport-de-laie-et-de-rte-et-évoque-un.html, accessed 26 July 2021.
159 - Standard & Poor’s, “French Utility EDF Downgraded To ‘BBB+’ On Prolonged Operational Weakness, Lower Output Due To
COVID-19; Outlook Stable”, 22 June 2020.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 future of France” are all depending on the nuclear industry.160 In brief, the quality of life, theindependence, la grandeur de la France all depend on the nuclear sector.
The French President insisted heavily on the interdependencies between the civil and militarybranches of the nuclear industry:
The sector is living of its complementarities and moreover it should be conceived in its
complementarities. And it is also because of that that we need to constantly think in the longterm, the capacity to preserve our technical, technological, and industrial competences on
the entire sector to protect our sovereign production capacities, civil as well as military. The
one is not possible without the other.161 Without civil nuclear no military nuclear, without
military nuclear no civil nuclear.162

The President mentioned the “Creusot Affair” only in passing, “four and a half years after
these moments of doubt”. However, he also stated:
As it is very difficult to say today which, nuclear [power] or renewable energies, will be thebest technology to replace our existing nuclear fleet in 2035, we therefore need to look at
the entire range of possibilities. (…) First, we need to study the technical feasibility of anelectricity mix with a very high level of renewables. A report commissioned from theInternational Energy Agency [IEA] and RTE [Réseau de Transport d’Électricité] will be
published early next year.163

Indeed, the joint IEA-RTE report was released in January 2021 and found “no insurmountable
technical barriers to move towards a mix with very high shares of variable renewable energy”,
that is 85–90 percent by 2050 and 100 percent by 2060.164 However, the study sees fourareas where additional developments seem necessary: Power system strength; adequacy andflexibility resources to cope with the variability of wind and solar PV; operational reserves; andgrid development.165
The IEA-RTE working group is carrying out a series of follow-up assessments including afull system-cost analysis and extensive modeling of the European power sector. The work isscheduled to be completed before the end of 2021.
The conflicting signals between the affirmation of the traditional government support for the“all-nuclear” approach and the fine-tuning of an “all-renewables” feasibility analysis are likely
to provide ample substance for debate well into 2022 with the first round of the presidential
election scheduled for 10 April.

160 - Élysée, “Notre avenir énergétique et écologique passe par le nucléaire. Déplacement du Président Emmanuel Macron sur
le site industriel de Framatome”, French Government, 8 December 2020 (in French), see https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuelmacron/2020/12/08/deplacement-du-president-emmanuel-macron-sur-le-site-industriel-de-framatome, accessed 13 May 2021.
161 - French original: “L’un ne va pas sans l’autre.”
162 - Élysée, “Notre avenir énergétique et écologique passe par le nucléaire. Déplacement du Président Emmanuel Macron sur le siteindustriel de Framatome”, French Government, December 2020, op. cit.
163 - Ibidem.
164 - RTE-IEA, “RTE and IEA publish study on the technical conditions necessary for a power system with a High Share of Renewables
in France Towards 2050”, Press Release, 27 January 2021, see https://www.iea.org/news/rte-and-iea-publish-study-on-the-technicalconditions-necessary-for-a-power-system-with-a-high-share-of-renewables-in-france-towards-2050, accessed 2 September 2021.
165 - RTE-IEA, “Conditions and Requirements for the Technical Feasibility of a Power System with a High Share of Renewables inFrance Towards 2050”, January 2021.

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Worst Performance in Decades
Until the closure of the two oldest French units at Fessenheim in the spring of 2020, theFrench nuclear fleet had remained stable for 20 years, except for the closure of the 250 MW fast
breeder Phénix in 2009 and for two units in LTO within the period 2015–2017 (see Figure 21).
Figure 21 · Operating Fleet and Capacity in France

Nuclear Reactors and Net Operating Capacity in France

2020
56 Reactors
61.4 GW

in Units and GWe,1959–2020
1999
Grid Connection
Civaux-2

Reactors in Operation
Reactors in LTO

1994
ClosureBugey-1

Operating Capacity
Units

2009
ClosurePhénix

ClosureFessenheim-1 & -2

GWe
60

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

50

50

40

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

0

1959

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

0

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

No new reactor has started up since Civaux-2 was connected to the French grid in 1999. The
first and only PWR closed prior to Fessenheim was the 300 MW Chooz-A reactor, which was
retired in 1991. The other closures were eight first generation natural-uranium gas-graphite
reactors, two fast breeder reactors and a small prototype heavy water reactor (see Figure 22).
In 2020, the 58 operating reactors—including the two Fessenheim reactors closed in the firsthalf of 2020166 — produced 335.4 TWh, an 11.6 percent drop over the previous year.167 The plungeof 44.1 TWh is larger than the total annual production of 21 smaller nuclear power generating
countries, including Japan, or larger than the annual generation of two thirds of all nuclear
countries. It is the fifth year in a row that generation remained below 400 TWh, partially due
to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. In 2005, nuclear generation peaked at 431.2 TWh.
Nuclear plants provided 67.1 percent of the country’s electricity, 3.5 percentage points less thanin 2019, the lowest share since 1985. According to RTE, the share peaked in 2005 at 78.3 percent(see Figure 23).

166 - All Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs), 34 x 900 MW, 20 x 1300 MW, and 4 x 1400 MW.
167 - RTE, “Bilan Électrique 2020”, Réseau de Transport d’Électricité, January 2021, see https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/
public/2021-03/Bilan%20electrique%202020_0.pdf, accessed 2 September 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 85

Figure 22 · Startups and Closures in France

French Reactor Startups and Closures 1959–2020
in Units
Startups

8

Operating7

Closed
PWR

PWR

6

GCR

5
4
1959
G2

3

HWGCR

1967
Chooz A

FBR

1999
Civaux-2

2
1
0

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

-1
-2
Closures

1991
1996
Chooz A Superphénix© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

2009
Phénix2020
Fessenheim-1 &- 2

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Notes:
PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor; GCR: Gas-Cooled Reactor; HGWGCR: Heavy Water Gas Cooled Reactor; FBR: Fast Breeder Reactor.

Figure 23 · Nuclear Electricity Production in France 1990–2020

Nuclear Electricity Production in France 1990–2020
in TWh and Share in Electricity Generation (net)
TWh

2005
Historic Records
Production: 430 TWh
Share: 78.3%

Nuclear Share
Nuclear Electricity
Production

500

Share in %2020
Production: 335.5 TWh
Share: 67.1%

400

80
70

300

200

100

0

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: RTE, 2000–2021

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 86

In the first half of 2021, nuclear production recovered to some degree but remained below the
2019-level and at the lower end of the 2012–2019 range (see Figure 24).
Figure 24 · Startups and Closures in France

Monthly Nuclear Production in Francein TWh, 2012–mid-2021
40

30

20

2021
2020
2019

10

Range 2012-2019© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sep.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

0

Source: RTE, “Données Mensuelles”, 2021

Nuclear plants provided 17 percent of final energy in France in 2020, with the largest share
being covered by fossil fuels with 63 percent.
According to operator EDF, the negative impact relating to Covid-19 on 2020 generation isestimated to be approximately 33 TWh. In addition to the effects of the health crisis, the dropin power generation is due to the shutdown of the two Fessenheim reactors as well as:ɆɆ The shutdown of Flamanville-2 (ten-year inspection) and Paluel-2 (Simple Reload
Shutdown – SRS) which continued throughout the 2020 campaign, due to major technicalissues. The end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 saw the return of these two units to thegrid.
ɆɆ A significant technical complication on a shared radioactive effluent collection tank for
Bugey-2 and -3, resulting in the extension of the ten-year inspection of Bugey-2 and the
shutdown of Unit 3 (as well as the extension of its SRS);
ɆɆ Exceptional incidents and large-scale contingencies (Flamanville-1 diesel – 10 TWh,
Cattenom-1 power transmission station – 1.1 TWh):ɆɆ In addition, production losses were suffered at the Chooz power plant due to the low waterlevels in the river Meuse.168

168 - EDF, “Universal Registration Document 2020—Annual Financial Report”, filed 15 March 2021,
see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/investors-shareholders/reference-documents, accessed 26 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 87

Nuclear Unavailability Review 2020
In 2020, the total duration of zero output of the French reactor fleet reached 6,465 reactordays (up 885 days or 16 percent from the 5,580 reactor-days in 2019, following a 500-day or
10 percent increase in 2019 over 2018), an average of 115.5 days per reactor (up 19.3 days over2019) or an outage ratio of about one third of the time, not including load following or otheroperational situations with reduced but above-zero output e.g. as a consequence of heat anddrought. All 56 reactors were subject to outages ranging from 5–356 days (see Figure 25 andFigure 26).
Figure 25 · Reactor Outages in France in 2020 (in number of units and GWe)

Unavailability of French Nuclear Reactors in 2020
Reactors Offline the Same Day (Zero Output)in Units and Capacity

2020
On 335 days—92% of the year—10 reactors or more did not provide any power at least part of the day,of which 169 days—46% of the year—20 or more reactors.
The maximum number of reactors offline simultaneously was 30 (33 GW) and the minimum 6 (6.7 GW).
Twenty reactors or more were off-line simultaneously during the equivalent of 158.5 days (43% of the year).

Half of French Nuclear Capacity

30

Half of French Reactor Fleet
25

GW
Units

20

15

10

5

0

01/01

01/02

01/03

01/04

01/05

01/06

01/07

01/08

01/09

01/10

01/11

01/12

31/12

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: RTE, compiled by WNISR, 2021169

Note: For each day in the year, this graph shows the total number of reactors offline, not necessarily simultaneously as all unavailabilities do not overlap, buton the same day. The two Fessenheim reactors closed in the first half of the year are not represented.

The unavailability analysis further shows170:
ɆɆ On 13 days (4 percent of the year), 28 or more (30–34.4 GW) of the 56 units were down for
at least part of the day.

169 - RTE, “Données des Indisponibilités de Production 2020”, as of February 2021, see https://www.services-rte.com/en/downloaddata-published-by-rte.html?category=generation&type=unavailabilities.
170 - Note that the two Fessenheim reactors are not included in this analysis (unless explicitly mentioned), nor in the graphics.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 88

ɆɆ On 169 days (46 percent of the year, up from 26 percent in 2019), 20 or more units wereshut down for at least part of the day.
ɆɆ On 335 days (92 percent of the year, up from 83 percent in 2019), at least 10 units were
down during the same day.
ɆɆ At least six reactors (6.7 GW) were down (zero capacity) simultaneously at any day of theyear.
ɆɆ At least twenty reactors were offline simultaneously during the equivalent of 158.5 days.
Figure 26 · Forced and Planned Unavailability of Nuclear Reactors in France in 2020

Unavailability of French Nuclear Reactors in 2020

Reactors
Nogent-1
Golfech-1
St Alban-2
Belleville-2
Penly-2
Civaux-2
Golfech-2
Paluel-4
Dampierre-3
Tricastin-1
St Laurent-2
Paluel-1
Cattenom-3
Cattenom-1
Bugey-4
Tricastin-2
Blayais-4
Blayais-2
Chinon-2
Cruas-1
Gravelines-4
Cruas-2
Bugey-5
St Laurent-1
Gravelines-1
Cattenom-4
Gravelines-2
Gravelines-5
Chinon-1
Cruas-4
Tricastin-4
Chooz-2Chinon-3
St Alban-1
Dampierre-2
Gravelines-3
Blayais-1
Blayais-3
Tricastin-3
Paluel-3
Dampierre-4
Penly-1
Cruas-3
Gravelines-6
Cattenom-2
Nogent-2
Dampierre-1
Civaux-1
Belleville-1
Chinon-4
Chooz-1
Bugey-3
Flamanville-2
Bugey-2
Flamanville-1
Paluel-2

Cumulated Duration of Unavailability at Zero Power (in Days)

Planned Unavailability

Average full outage timeby reactor: 115.5 days

Forced Unavailability

2020
Unavailabilities at zero power affecting the French nuclear
fleet reached a total of 6,475 reactor-days, an average of
115.5 days per reactor.
All of the 56 reactors were affected, with cumulated
outages between 3.5 days and the full year.

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Cumulated Duration of Unavailabilities (in Days)

Sources: compiled by WNISR, with RTE Data, EDF, “List of outages”, 2020–2021

Notes:
This graph only compiles outages at zero power, thus excluding all other operational periods with reduced capacity >0 MW. Impact of unavailabilities on
power production is therefore significantly larger.
“Planned” and “Forced” unavailabilities as declared by EDF.
The two Fessenheim reactors closed in the first half of the year are not represented.

EDF’s declaration of “planned” vs. “forced” outages is grossly misleading. According to thatclassification, in 2020, 15 reactors did not have any “forced” outage, at eight units they lasted
less than one day, and at 24 between one and ten days, just nine reactors fall in the range
between 11 and 31 days of “forced” outage.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 89

EDF considers an outage as planned whatever the number of extensions or its duration. In fact,
WNISR analysis shows that in 2019 only one unit (Dampierre-3) restarted as planned after along outage of 82 days. All other outages were extended beyond the original grid-reconnection
dates. The unplanned delays ranged from 1.3 to 175 days. The additional unavailability added up
to 1,705 days, an increase of 44 percent over the expected outage duration.
The Flamanville site was the worst performer. The two units finally restarted on
12 December 2020 (FL2) and 3 May 2021 (FL1), after 702-day and 593-day outages. Throughout
the shutdown, EDF has labeled the outage for both units as “planned”, a policy that does nothelp the public and decision-makers understand the real nature of plant management andperformance by the largest nuclear operator in the world.
According to EDF, the outage schedule for the 2020 campaign “suffered significant upheaval
due to the health crisis, requiring major adjustments to the work programmes, and causing
disruption to preparation”.171 In particular:
Some shutdowns were extended by more than 50 days, notably the partial inspections at
Cattenom-2, Civaux-1, Cruas-3, Blayais-3, and Gravelines-6, and the ten-year inspection at
Chinon-B4. These shutdowns, some of which began during the first lockdown, met withsignificant complications.172

Lifetime Extension, ASN’s Conditional Generic Approval
By mid-2021, the average age of the 56 power reactors exceeds 36 years (see Figure 27). Lifetime
extension beyond 40 years—49 operating units are now over 31 years old—requires significant
additional upgrades. Also, relicensing will be subject to public enquiries reactor by reactor.
Figure 27 · Age Distribution of French Nuclear Fleet (by Decade)Age of French Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age

42

21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years

7

56 reactors
Mean Age36.1 Years

50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class
7© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

171 - EDF, “Universal Registration Document 2020— Annual Financial Report”, op. cit.
172 - For a diesel generator at Cattenom-2, on an ASG pump (steam generator auxiliary power supply] at Civaux-1, and on an RRA
exchanger (shutdown cooling circuit) at Chinon-B4.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Operating costs have increased substantially over the past few years (see also previous WNISR
editions). Outages that systematically exceed planned timeframes are particularly costly.
EDF’s net financial debt increased by €8 billion (US$9 billion) in 2019 and grew by another€1.2 billion (US$1.4 billion) in 2020 to a total of €42.3 billion (US$50 billion).173
Until 2022, the COVID-19 effects might add a total of €5–10 billion (US$6–12 billion) to thecompany’s debt burden and increase the pressure for further cost savings.174
Investments for lifetime extensions will need to be balanced against the excessive nuclear
share in the power mix, the stagnating or decreasing electricity consumption in France—it
has been roughly stable for the past decade—and in the European Union (EU) as a whole, theshrinking client base due to successful competitors, and the energy efficiency and renewableenergy production targets set at both the EU and the French levels.
EDF has been losing 100,000–200,000 clients per month for several years. As of the end of
2020, EDF’s competitors had captured half of the commercial customers and 26 percent of theresidential clients.175 On 1 January 2021, EDF lost 300,000 non-residential customers in one go
when the regulated tariffs for small commercial users were abolished.176
At the beginning of 2018, EDF claimed its power generating costs for existing reactors wouldbe €32/MWh (US$38/MWh)—including nuclear operating and maintenance costs (€22/MWhor US$201826/MWh including fuel at €5/MWh – US$20186/MWh) and all anticipated upgrading
costs for plant life extension to 50 years (10 €/MWh or US$201812/MWh)—and would remain
more economic than “any new alternative”.177
However, there are serious questions about these numbers. Michèle Pappalardo, former senior
representative of the Court of Accounts, remarked during the National Assembly’s InquiryCommittee hearings that EDF’s calculation stopped mid-way in 2025, and recalled that the
Court had calculated a total cost of €100 billion (US$117 billion) for the period 2014–2030.178
That figure has been confirmed by EDF in the meantime.179
However, these estimates were based on the situation in early 2018, but EDF’s performance in
2018–20 significantly deteriorated with unprecedented outage extensions, thus low productionlevels in a low-price, low-consumption market environment, which had not been factored into
the 2018-cost calculations. The COVID-19 crisis led to a further deterioration of the situation
and will have repercussions at least into 2022.

173 - EDF, “Consolidated Financial Statements at 31 December 2020”, 13 April 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/espaces-dedies/espace-finance-en/financial-information/publications/financial-results/2020-annual-results/pdf/annualresults-2020-consolidated-financial-statements-20210218.pdf, accessed 26 July 2021.
174 - Le Monde, “‘Mimosa’, le nouveau plan d’économies d’EDF”, 7 July 2020.
175 - CRE, “Les marchés de détail de l’électricité et du gaz naturel — Observatoire, 4 E Trimestre 2020 (Données au 31/12/2020)”, French
Energy Regulatory Commission, March 2021 (in French), see https://www.cre.fr/Documents/Publications/Observatoire-des-marches/
observatoire-des-marches-de-detail-de-l-energie-du-4eme-trimestre-2020, accessed 29 August 2021.
176 - CRE, “Délibération de la Commission de régulation de l’énergie du 18 mars 2021 portant communication sur le déroulé deséchéances relatives à la fin partielle des tarifs réglementés de vente d’électricité et à la suppression des tarifs réglementés de vente degaz naturel”, Délibération 2021-84, French Energy Regulatory Commission, 18 March 2021.
177 - EDF, “Le parc nucléaire en exploitation en France : Exploitation, maintenance et Grand Carénage”, 11 January 2018.
178 - Barbara Pompili, “Rapport d’enquête sur la sûreté et la sécurité des installations nucléaires—N° 1122 tome II”, 28 June 2018
(in French), see http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/rap-enq/r1122-tII.asp, accessed 19 July 2018.
179 - EDF, “Consolidated Financial Statements at 31 December 2020”, op. cit.

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EDF will likely seek lifetime extension beyond the 4th Decennial Safety Review (VD4) for most,
if not all, of its remaining reactors. This is in line with the Government’s pluriannual energyplan, which does not envisage any further reactor closures until 2023 (after the presidential
elections) and only a limited number in the following years. This program will be limited to
900 MWe reactors, the oldest segment of the French nuclear fleet. The first reactor to undergo
the VD4 was Tricastin-1 in 2019. Bugey-2 and -4 were scheduled in 2020, and Tricastin-2,
Dampierre-1, Bugey-5 and Gravelines-1 in 2021… until the COVID-19 pandemic further
disrupted the safety review schedule.
While the President of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) judged the VD4-premiere on
Tricastin-1 “satisfactory”, he questioned whether EDF’s engineering resources were sufficient
to carry out similar extensive reviews simultaneously at several sites.180 Beyond the humanresource issue, the experience raises the question of affordability. EDF had scheduled an outage
for Tricastin-1 of 180 days in 2019, which was extended by 25 days. Including further, unrelated
unavailabilities, the reactor was in full outage during two thirds of the year (232 days).
EDF expects these VD4 outages to last six months, much longer than the average of three tofour months experienced through VD2 and VD3 outages. However, as illustrated, many factors
could lead to significantly longer outages. EDF, in fact, has already started negotiating with
ASN for the workload to be split in two packages, with the supposedly smaller second one to be
postponed four years after the VD4.181
On 23 February 2021, the ASN issued detailed generic requirements for plant life extension.
Originally, these requirements were to be issued in 2016 but their release has been postponedseveral times, due to the need for extended and often unprecedented technical discussions.
The general objective of ASN has been to bring the reactors “as close as possible” to the safetylevel required in new reactor designs, such as the EPR under construction in Flamanville. ASN
notes in its 2019-Annual Report:
The safety reassessment of these reactors and the resulting improvements must be carriedout by comparison with the new-generation reactors, such as the EPR, the design of whichmeets significantly reinforced safety requirements.182

This is strikingly different from most other countries, where safety authorities merely request
to maintain a given safety level. Accordingly, the key aspects of ASN’s February 2021 decisionwere not the five short administrative articles but the two annexes setting the technicalconditions and the timetable for work to be carried out. The challenge for operator EDF will behigh, as ASN outlines:

180 - Bernard Doroszsuk, “Présentation du rapport annuel 2019 de l’Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) sur l’état de la sûreté nucléaire
et de la radioprotection en France”, ASN, Hearing before The Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment, French
National Assembly, 28 May 2020, see http://videos.senat.fr/video.1628244_5ecf547f8a96f.audition-pleniere---autorite-de-suretenucleaire?timecode=2963962, accessed 13 August 2020.
181 - ASN, “Réexamen périodique associé aux quatrièmes visites décennales des réacteurs du palier 900 MWe”, Presentation at a
meeting of the local information committee on the major energy facilities at Tricastin, Commission locale d’information des grandséquipements énergétiques du Tricastin (CLIGEET), 4 July 2018 (in French), see https://www.ladrome.fr/sites/default/files/5.2_
presentation_asn_vd4.pdf, accessed 23 March 2019.
182 - ASN, “ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2019”, 15 July 2020,see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/Publications/ASN-s-annual-reports/ASN-Report-on-the-state-of-nuclear-safetyand-radiation-protection-in-France-in-2019, accessed 17 August 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Over the coming five years, the nuclear sector will have to cope with a significant increasein the volume of work that is absolutely essential to ensuring the safety of the facilities inoperation.
Starting in 2021, four to five of EDF’s 900 Megawatts electric (MWe) reactors will undergo
major work as a result of their fourth ten-yearly outages. (…)
All of this work will significantly increase the industrial workload of the sector, withparticular attention required in certain segments that are under strain, such as mechanicaland engineering, at both the licensees and the contractors.183

ASN has shown remarkable tolerance for extended timescales of refurbishments and upgradesin the past, e.g. many of the post-Fukushima measures have not yet been implemented.
According to information provided by ASN to Greenpeace France on 3 March 2021 following adetailed questionnaire sent to ASN on 16 December 2020, none of the 56 French reactors were
backfitted entirely according to ASN requests issued in 2012. Completion of the work program
could take until 2039.184
And the implementation of work to be carried out as part of the lifetime extension beyond
40 years stretches over 15 years until 2036, when the last 900 MW reactor is supposed to be
upgraded: Chinon B-4, connected to the grid in 1987, gets the 15-year delay to implement 15 of a
total of 37 measures. The unit will have operated then for 49 years. This is not an exception; it
is just the most recent operating 900 MW reactor. ASN has accepted similar timescales for all
32 of the 900 MW units. The French Nuclear Safety Authorities are flexible.

The Flamanville-3 EPR Saga Continued
The 2005 construction decision of Flamanville-3 (FL3) was mainly motivated by the industry’s
attempt to confront the serious problem of maintaining nuclear competence. Fifteen years
later, ASN still drew attention to the “need to reinforce skills, professional rigorousness andquality within the nuclear sector”.185
In December 2007, EDF started construction on FL3 with a scheduled startup date of 2012.
The project has been plagued with design issues and quality-control problems, including basic
concrete and welding difficulties similar to those at the Olkiluoto (OL3) project in Finland,
which started construction two-and-a-half years earlier. These problems never stopped.
In April 2018, it was discovered that the main welds in the secondary steam system did notconform with the technical specifications; so by the end of May 2018 EDF stated that repair

183 - ASN, “Abstracts ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2020”, May 2021,
see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/Publications/ASN-s-annual-reports/ASN-Report-on-the-state-of-nuclear-safetyand-radiation-protection-in-France-in-2020, accessed 27 July 2021.
184 - Institute négaWatt, “Sûreté nucléaire – Les mesures de renforcement du parc nucléaire français, dix ans après la catastrophe de
Fukushima”, Report commissioned by Greenpeace France, March 2021, see https://cdn.greenpeace.fr/site/uploads/2021/03/GreenpeaceFrance-Les-mesures-de-renforcement-du-parc-nucl%C3%A9aire-fran%C3%A7ais-10-ans-apr%C3%A8s-Fukushima-Dossier-de-pressemars-2021-1.pdf, accessed 23 August 2021.
185 - Ibidem.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 work might again cause “a delay of several months to the start-up of the Flamanville 3 European
Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) reactor.”186
In July 2020, EDF had stated that fuel loading would now be delayed to “late 2022” andconstruction costs re-evaluated at €12.4 billion, an increase of €1.5 billion over the previous
estimate.187 In addition to the overnight construction costs, as of December 2019, EDF indicatedmore than €4.2 billion (US$20194.6 billion) was needed for various cost items, including€3 billion (US$20193.3 billion) of financial costs. By 1 July 2023, the latest provisional date forthe startup of the reactor, these additional costs could reach €20156.7 billion (US$20157.4 billion).
The latest construction cost estimate given by EDF of €201512.4 billion would represent about
two thirds of the total thus estimated by the French Court of Accounts at €201519.1 billion(US$202020 billion).188
On the basis of the updated cost estimates, the Court states that FL-3 electricity could possibly
be generated at €2015110–120/MWh (US$137–149/MWh).
All of these numbers do not take into account the COVID-19 effect, and EDF warned that theconstruction interruption at the Flamanville EPR “could result in further delays and additionalcosts”.189
That is in addition to new technical issues. ASN notes in its 2020 Annual Report:
The inspection of the EPR equipment has already revealed numerous deviations fromthe required level of quality. ASN therefore asked EDF to perform a quality review of theFlamanville EPR reactor equipment. With regard to the secondary circuits (main steamlines and steam generator feedwater lines), more than a hundred welds are concerned bydeviations. (…)
ASN is particularly attentive to operating experience feedback from the EPR reactors inFinland and China, which highlights certain subjects requiring specific investigation andexamination. It notably concerns the stress corrosion on the pilot valves of the EPR reactor at
Olkiluoto (Finland), as well as the anomalies on the power distributions in the EPR cores in
Taishan (China).190

In March 2021, EDF notified ASN of a new problem. Back in 2006, EDF and Framatome changed
the design of three nozzles—connections between pipes—and increased the diameter of theweld connecting the pieces, which are part of the primary circuit. ASN reports: “At the time,they did not identify the fact that the break size to be considered in the event of rupture of thisweld now exceeded that considered in the safety studies.”191 EDF only detected this in 2013, but
apparently did not communicate it to ASN, and, instead, “decided to process this anomaly byextending to these welds the break preclusion approach applied to the main primary system
186 - EDF, “Quality deviations on certain welds of the secondary circuit at the Flamanville EPR: the investigation continues”,
31 May 2018, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/quality-deviations-on-certainwelds-of-the-secondary-circuit-at-the-flamanville-epr-the-investigation-continues, accessed 7 June 2018.
187 - EDF, “Annual Financial Report 2019 – Universal Registration Document”, March 2020, op. cit.
188 - Cour des Comptes, “La filière EPR”, 9 July 2020. See WNISR2020 for excerpts from the report.
189 - EDF, “2020 Half-Year Results”, Press Release, 30 July 2020.
190 - ASN, “Abstracts ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2020”, op. cit.
191 - ASN, “Flamanville EPR reactor: design anomaly on three main primary system nozzles”, 18 March 2021,
see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/News-releases/Flamanville-EPR-reactor-design-anomaly-on-three-mainprimary-system-nozzles, accessed 27 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 pipes”. This approach consists in reinforcing design and manufacturing requirements topractically exclude a break scenario that would call for the study and mitigation strategies ofpotential consequences. ASN has yet to issue a position statement on this latest problem.
Independent nuclear experts Manon Besnard and Yves Marignac, both members of several
ASN advisory committees, issued a briefing on the nozzle problem expressing concern that “noprocedure allowed ASN, for fifteen years, to identify” the issue. The “coincidental discovery”
of the problem reinforces “the picture of the systemic crisis” in nuclear safety, they write.192

An EPR “New Model”, an “EPR2”?
Various reports over the past few years indicated that EDF is pushing for an early decisionon the construction of new EPRs. The trade journal Contexte Énergie has consulted a leaked
study evaluating four scenarios of an electricity mix in 2050. EDF’s Strategy Department
concludes that the three scenarios combining renewables and nuclear power would “provide
a better resilience” than an all-renewable option as they would avoid “betting on the maturityof certain technologies and on the capacity to mobilize very high potentials of renewables”.
They would also “allow to achieve the objectives at lower cost”.193 Consequently, the EDF study
pushes for a decision to engage in the construction of six EPRs as early as 2021–22, thus prior
to the presidential elections.
The leak of EDF’s conclusions appears convenient in the interest of those wishing to follow
suit, as it is impossible to assess the underlying hypotheses.
The government has asked EDF to “prepare a comprehensive file with the nuclear industry
by mid-2021 relating to a programme of renewal of nuclear facilities in France”. Studies for a
new design termed EPR NM (New Model) or EPR2 are underway. EDF has “started to prepare
economic and industrial proposals based on the EPR2 technology”.194
ASN’s technical support organization IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté
Nucléaire) issued several critical assessments of EDF’s pre-design choices. ASN had requested
EDF to take into account the crash of a military plane in the design and safety studies. IRSN
concluded in a note released in December 2020 that “EDF’s approach stays behind ASN’srequest”, in particular that such a “crash does not entail an accident”.195 In another analysis
published in March 2021, IRSN looks at a phenomenon identified in various EPRs in operationor under construction. Excessive vibrations have been identified in pipework connected to thepressurizer. IRSN stated that manufacturer “Framatome must identify the origin of the highvibrations and bring them back to a situation comparable to the one in the operating fleet.”This should not exclude the development of a new design.196

192 - Manon Besnard and Yves Marignac, “Problème de piquages du circuit primaire de l’EPR de Flamanville”, Institut négaWatt,
18 March 2021, Reviewed 2 April 2021 (in French), see https://www.institut-negawatt.com/fichiers/autres_documents/20210402InstitutnegaWatt-Piquages-EPR-Flamanville-V2.pdf, accessed 29 August 2021.
193 - Contexte Énergie, “Info Contexte - L’étude qui permet à EDF de justifier la construction de nouveaux EPR”, 19 March 2021.
194 - EDF, “Annual Financial Report 2019 – Universal Registration Document”, March 2020, op. cit.
195 - IRSN, “Avis IRSN N°2020-00204”, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, 16 December 2020.
196 - IRSN, “Avis IRSN N°2021-00049”, 31 March 2021.

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Increasing Role for Renewables Welcome
The national grid company, RTE, stated: “The decline in nuclear production compared to 2019was thus compensated partially by an increase in wind and solar production”. While hydrocontributed half of the renewable energy generation in 2020, wind power provided 33 percent,solar 11 percent, and biomass 6 percent.197
According to the 2020-edition of IRSN’s “Opinion Barometer”, nine in ten consulted citizens
hold a “rather good” or “very good” opinion of solar energy and eight in ten do the same
concerning wind turbines. Concerning nuclear energy, only one third express a “rather good”
or “very good” opinion, but 16 percent do have a “very bad” opinion about nuclear power
representing the strongest absolute rejection of any suggested energy option. (See Figure 28.)198
Figure 28 · Opinion Survey on Energy Sources in France (in 2020)

French Public Opinion Survey on Energy Sources
What is your opinion about each of the following energy sources?
Solar

91.2

Wind

81.6
78.4

Hydro
Biomass

68.4

Gas

43.1

NuclearVery Good
Rather Good

34.3

Oil

25.6
0

20

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
40

60

80

100

Ranking of Energies According to Positive Opinion in %Sources: IRSN Barometer, 2020

INDIA FOCUS
India has 21 operational nuclear power reactors, with a total net generating capacity of 6.5 GW.
One unit falls under the LTO category, Madras-1, which was shut down on 30 January 2018 tocarry out work on the end-shield and had not come back up as of mid-2021. The Rajasthan-1
reactor, which has not generated power since 2004, is considered permanently closed.199 The
latest of the operational reactors is the third unit of the Kakrapar power plant. The 630-MW

197 - RTE, “Bilan Électrique 2020”, January 2021, op. cit.
198 - IRSN, “Baromètre 2020 – La perception des risques et de la sécurité par les français”, 2020.
199 - Deccan Herald, “End of the road for RAPS 1”, 6 September 2014, see http://www.deccanherald.com/content/429550/end-roadraps-1.html, accessed 16 June 2016

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) went critical on 22 July 2020 and was connected to
the grid on 10 January 2021.200
In addition to these operating reactors, seven more reactors, with a combined capacity of
5.2 GW, are under construction. These include one VVER-1000s at Kudankulam-5 (first pourof concrete in June 2021)201, two more VVER-1000s at Kudankulam (under construction sinceJune and October 2017), three PHWRs—including one at Kakrapar (since November 2010)
and two at Rajasthan (since July and September 2011)—and a Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor(PFBR) that has been under construction since October 2004.
According to the IAEA’s PRIS database, nuclear power contributed 40.4 TWh net of electricity
in 2020, marginally less than 40.7 TWh in 2019. This represents a share of 3.1 percent of total
power generation, compared to 3.2 percent in 2019. India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA)
records 43.9 TWh from nuclear power for the period from April 2020 to March 2021, lower
than the corresponding figure of 46.4 TWh from April 2019 to March 2020.202

Strong Push for Renewables
In comparison, renewable energy sources, excluding large hydropower plants, together
generated 147.3 TWh during the period from April 2020 to March 2021, up from 138.3 TWhgenerated from April 2019 to March 2020.203 Of the generation in 2020–2021, wind and solar
energy contributed 60.1 TWh and 60.4 TWh, in comparison to 64.6 TWh and 50.1 TWh
respectively in the previous year. As was the case in the year before, both wind and solar
power have overtaken nuclear power in electricity generation. Together solar and wind energy
generated nearly three times as much electricity as nuclear energy during the 2020-21 fiscal
year.
BP’s 2021 statistical review reports 44.6 TWh gross of nuclear electricity and 151.2 TWh for
non-hydro renewables for the year 2020, including solar and wind energy with 58.7 TWh and60.4 TWh respectively. This compares to 45.2 TWh from nuclear power and 139.2 TWh from
non-hydro renewables for the year 2019.204
The divergence between the contributions from renewable energy sector and nuclear energy
is expected to increase drastically in the coming years and decades. The International Energy
Agency (IEA) foresees explosive growth in solar energy followed by a somewhat more modest
increase in wind energy, but relatively minuscule levels of growth of nuclear power.205 Somestudies involving modelling the grid in India even suggest that wind and solar energy “could
meet 80% of anticipated 2040 power demand supplanting the country’s current reliance on
200 - WNISR, “Grid Connection for India’s Largest Reactor at Kakrapar”, World Nuclear Industry Status Report, 15 January 2021,
see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Grid-Connection-for-India-s-Largest-Reactor-at-Kakrapar.html, accessed 2 June 2021.
201 - Construction status of Kudankulam-6 remains uncertain.
202 - CEA, “Annual Generation Programme: 2020-21”, Central Electric Authority, 2021,
see https://cea.nic.in/wp-content/uploads/annual_generation/2019/gen_target-2020.pdf, accessed 2 June 2021.
203 - CEA, “Monthly Renewable Energy (RE) Generation Report March 2021”, May 2021,
see https://cea.nic.in/wp-content/uploads/resd/2021/03/Monthly%20RE%20generaton%2021.pdf, accessed 3 June 2021.
204 - BP, “Statistical Review of World Energy 2021”, July 2021,
see https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html, accessed 12 July 2021.
205 - IEA, “India Energy Outlook 2021 – Analysis”, International Energy Agency, 2021,
see https://www.iea.org/reports/india-energy-outlook-2021, accessed 5 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 coal”.206 There seems to be a strong economic logic to renewables being expanded rapidly in
India.
However, in 2020, there was relatively sluggish growth in installed capacity due to the COVID-19
pandemic. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), installed
solar capacity increased by about 11 percent, from 35.1 GW in 2019 to 39.2 GW. Though stilla significant increase in capacity, it is smaller than in earlier years. For comparison, installed
solar capacity was only 0.6 GW in 2011. The growth in wind capacity was even more modest,
and installed capacity went from 37.5 GW in 2019 to 38.6 GW in 2020 (up from 16.1 GW in2011).207

Nuclear Construction Experiencing Delays
In contrast, the nuclear sector’s performance over the past year has been a continuation ofearlier trends, most importantly construction delays and cost overruns. Of the seven reactor
projects under construction, at least four, and possibly six, are delayed. The uncertainty is withregard to units 3 and 4 of Kudankulam; although there has been no official announcement,
in July 2021, Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW) reported that “Units 3 and 4 were targeted
for commissioning in March and November 2023, but will now be completed in September
2024 and March 2025”.208 The other units are officially delayed. The PHWR that started
operating in Kakrapar was to be commissioned in 2015. The two PHWRs under construction
at Rajasthan were to be commissioned in late 2016. As of March 2021, the anticipated dates ofcommissioning are February 2022 for Kakrapar-4, and March 2023 for Rajasthan-7 and -8.209 In
a petition to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Power Corporationof India Limited (NPCIL) has stated that it expects Rajasthan-7 to be connected to the grid by
30 June 2022.210
Finally, the PFBR continues to maintain its status as the most delayed project. From the initialexpectation that it will be commissioned in September 2010, the latest “anticipated” date forcommissioning the PFBR is October 2022.211 The shift from September 2010 to October 2022
was in steps, by a few months or a year at a time.212 What has also been changing with time isthe official explanations for the delays. An initial factor that the nuclear establishment blamed
206 - Tianguang Lu, Peter Sherman et al., “India’s potential for integrating solar and on- and offshore wind power into its energy
system”, Nature Communications, 21 September 2020.
207 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, International Renewable Energy Agency, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/-/
media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2021.pdf, accessed 4 May 2021.
208 - Rakesh Sharma “Kudankulam-5 Construction Start Marks New Milestone”, NIW, 2 July 2021.
209 - MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector Projects Costing Rs. 150 crore & above (January-March,2021)”, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2021, see http://www.cspm.gov.in/english/QrtrlyReport.htm,
accessed 5 June 2021.
210 - Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, “Petition No. 108/MP/2021–In the matter of Petition seeking permission to continue
drawal of start-up power from the Grid as per Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) till first synchronization of RAPP-7 or
30.6.2022, whichever is earlier–And in the matter of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) Vs. Northern Regional Load
Dispatch Centre”, 5 June 2021, see https://cercind.gov.in/2021/orders/108-MP-2021.pdf, accessed 13 July 2021.
211 - MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector Projects Costing Rs. 150 Crore & above (January-March, 2021)”,
op. cit., p.26.
212 - For a partial listing of the various announcements over the years, see M. V. Ramana and Nidhi Sharma, “Problems with thePrototype Fast Breeder Reactor”, The India Forum, 26 February 2021, see https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/problems-prototypefast-breeder-reactor, accessed 6 March 2021.

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was the December 2004 tsunami.213 The next cause to be blamed was the Fukushima accident,
followed by pointing to “increased regulatory requirements” and the need for “abundantcaution”.214 In September 2019, the chairperson of Bhavini, the organization constructing the
PFBR, talked about a variety of equipment failures at Bhavini’s annual general meeting.215 Morerecently, a former nuclear official revealed that the pumps used to circulate the molten sodium
have experienced problems.216
One set of reasons for the delay that is not explicitly acknowledged relates to the Mixed
Oxide (MOX) fuel elements necessary to manufacture the core of the PFBR.217 There isevidence suggesting problems with either the production of adequate amounts of plutonium,218
or the ability to use that plutonium to fabricate MOX fuel.219

Rising Costs
As it has become progressively delayed, the projected cost of the PFBR has also risen, from theinitially anticipated Rs.34.9 billion to, first, Rs.56.8 billion, to currently Rs.68.4 billion.220 (Asof June 2021, the conversion rate to US$ is around Rs.73 per U.S. dollar. However, the PFBR
costs are in mixed-year Rupees and so directly converting it into other currencies using one
conversion rate is misleading.) Other projects have become more expensive too. Kakrapar-3
and -4 are now projected to cost Rs.165.8 billion, up from Rs. 114.6 billion, while Rajasthan-7
and -8 are now projected to cost Rs.170.8 billion, up from Rs.123.2 billion.221
Likely due to the construction cost escalation and delays, NPCIL has sought an increase intariff for power from Kakrapar-3 and -4 extension, from Rs.3.34/kWh to Rs 5.31/kWh and thestate of Gujarat, which is contractually obliged to purchase the output of about one third of thecapacity of the two units, reportedly requested the central government to intervene and lower
the tariff. The higher rate was particularly problematic for Gujarat because nuclear reactors
have what is called “must run” status.222
213 - Lok Sabha, “Unstarred question no. 5326: Fast Breeder Reactors”, Department of Atomic Energy, Question answered by ShriPrithviraj Chavan, Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences (Independent Charge, PMO, Personnel, Public
Grievances and Pensions and Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India, 28 April 2010, see https://dae.gov.in/writereaddata/lsus280410.pdf#page=1, accessed 5 June 2021.
214 - Lok Sabha, “Starred question No. 453: Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor”, Ministry of Atomic Energy, Question Answered by
Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India,
5 April 2017, see http://164.100.47.194/loksabha/Questions/QResult15.aspx?qref=51719&lsno=16, accessed 1 June 2021.
215 - R. Ramachandran, “India’s First Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor Has a New Deadline. Should We Trust It?”, The Wire,
20 August 2020, see https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/prototype-fast-breeder-reactor-dae-bhavini-npcil-liquid-sodium-coolantpurchase-orders/, accessed 5 June 2021.
216 - R. D. Kale, “India’s fast reactor programme – A review and critical assessment”, Progress in Nuclear Energy, 1 April 2020.
217 - M. V. Ramana, “Further delay in commissioning India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor”, IPFM Blog, 31 July 2016,see http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2016/07/further_delay_in_commissi.html, accessed 4 March 2020.
218 - Rajya Sabha, “Unstarred Question No. 468: Availability of Plutonium for the FBR”, Department of Atomic Energy, Answered by
Shri V. Narayanasamy, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government ofIndia, 8 August 2013, see https://dae.gov.in/node/writereaddata/parl/mansoon2013/rsus468.pdf, accessed 5 June 2021.
219 - Sekhar Basu, “Founder’s Day Address”, BARC, Speech, 29 October 2015, see http://www.barc.gov.in/presentations/fddir15.pdf,
accessed 5 June 2021.
220 - MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector Projects Costing Rs. 150 Crore & above (January-March, 2021)”,
op. cit.
221 - Ibidem.
222 - Maulik Pathak, “Kakrapar: Gujarat seeks lower tariff”, The Times of India, 24 October 2019, see https://timesofindia.indiatimes.
com/city/ahmedabad/kakrapar-state-seeks-lower-tariff/articleshow/71729707.cms, accessed 5 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Construction starts have also been slow. The government has long “accorded administrative
approval and financial sanction for” constructing ten 700-MW PHWRs at various sites aroundthe country.223 But construction is yet to begin on any of these.
In July 2020, the Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission announced that NPCIL
planned to start construction of two new projects, Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana(GHAVP, 2x700 MW) in Haryana and Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) Units 5
and 6 (2x1,000 MW) at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu “in the course of the year”.224 So far, firstconcrete has been poured only for Kudankulam-5 (and hypothetically -6). A similar promise wasrepeated in May 2021 by the Chairman & Managing Director of the Nuclear Power Corporationof India who said that the “first pour of concrete” for the Gorakhpur plant in the northernstate of Haryana “is also planned this year”.225 In September 2020, the government did state inparliament that “work has commenced” on the GHAVP and Kudankulam-5 and -6 projects.226
This presumably meant activities prior to first pour of concrete. Despite construction notstarting so far, the government has announced in parliament that “GHAVP 1&2 is expected
to commence operation in 2026/2027” with two more units at the same site coming online in
2027 and 2028.227

Reactor Imports Make Slow ProgressEver since the U.S.-India nuclear deal was negotiated between 2005 and 2008, there have beenplans to import reactors from the U.S. and France. Despite the clearly uneconomical nature ofsuch projects, they are still being considered, both by NPCIL and by nuclear reactor vendors. In
April 2021, EDF submitted a “binding techno-commercial offer to supply engineering studies
and equipment for the construction of six (6) EPR [European Pressurized Reactor] reactors
at the Jaitapur site” in India.228 According to this offer, EDF’s subsidiary Framatome would
provide nuclear steam supply systems, and GE Steam Power would supply the conventionalislands, but NPCIL would be responsible for the construction and the commissioning of these223 - Lok Sabha, “Unstarred question No. 1819: New Atomic Power Plants”, Department of Atomic Energy, Answered by Jitendra Singh,
Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, 21 September 2020,see http://164.100.24.220/loksabhaquestions/annex/174/AU1819.pdf, accessed 5 June 2021.
224 - V. Jagannathan, “NPCIL to build four more atomic power units in 2020, says AEC chief”, Business Standard India, 29 July 2020,see https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/npcil-to-build-four-more-atomic-power-units-in-2020-says-aecchief-120072900992_1.html, accessed 3 June 2021.
225 - V. Jagannathan, “Nuclear Power Corp to spend Rs 18,000 cr on capital expenditure in FY22”, Business Standard India,
17 May 2021, see https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/nuclear-power-corp-to-spend-rs-18-000-cr-on-capitalexpenditure-in-fy22-121051700186_1.html, accessed 4 June 2021.
226 - Singh et al., “Unstarred Question No. 1819: New Atomic Power Plants – Answered on 21.09.2020”, op. cit.
227 - Lok Sabha, “Unstarred question No. 367: Nuclear Power Plants ”, Department of Atomic Energy, Answered by Jitendra Singh,
Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, February 2021,
see https://dae.gov.in/writereaddata/lsusq%20367.pdf, accessed 5 June 2021.
228 - EDF, “EDF submits to the Indian nuclear operator NPCIL the French binding techno-commercial offer to build six EPRs at the
Jaitapur site”, Press Release, 23 April 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/
edf-submits-to-the-indian-nuclear-operator-npcil-the-french-binding-techno-commercial-offer-to-build-six-eprs-at-the-jaitapur-site,
accessed 5 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 reactors. No cost figures were mentioned but EDF explicitly announced that it is “neither aninvestor in the project nor in charge of the construction”.229
The performance of the last major imported reactors operating in India, Kudankulam-1 and -2,
has been poor. During the 2020-2021 financial year, NPCIL records capacity factors of
64 percent and 72 percent respectively.230 According to the IAEA’s PRIS database, Kudankulam-1
and Kudankulam-2 had load factors of 60.7 percent and 71.9 percent in 2020, and cumulative
load factors of 53.4 percent and 52.3 percent respectively. The official tariff for electricity from
Kudankulam-1 and -2 is the highest among all nuclear plants.231

JAPAN FOCUS
Overview
The past year has seen a decline in electricity generation from nuclear power in large partdue to forced extended outages linked to the regulatory deadline for completing anti-terrorism
emergency safety facilities. For six weeks from mid-November to late December 2020 only one
reactor was operating in Japan.232 However, by early 2021, four reactors were operating and asof 1 July 2021, eight reactors were operating. On 23 June 2021, the Mihama-3 Pressurized Water
Reactor (PWR) restarted for the first time in a decade becoming the first commercial reactor
in Japan to operate beyond 40 years after first grid connection.233
As of 1 July 2021, a total of ten PWRs had restarted in Japan since the application of new safety
guidelines under the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).
Progress by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) towards restart of Advanced Boiling
Water Reactors (ABWRs) at its one remaining nuclear plant, at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata,suffered a significant setback in April 2021. The NRA ordered a halt to scheduled refuelingoperations for Unit 7 until corrective measures were taken in response to security breaches atthe site.234 Restarts of Unit 6 and Unit 7 are also conditional on prefectural approval which is
not expected before summer 2022 at the earliest. The order was the first of its kind issued to acommercially operated nuclear facility in Japan and led TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa
to state: “We have grave concerns about whether we can continue to operate the nuclear power
generation business.”235
229 - Ibidem.
230 - NPCIL, “Kudankulam atomic power project”, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, May 2021,
see https://www.npcil.nic.in/content/320_1_OperatingPerformance.aspx, accessed 5 June 2021.
231 - Lok Sabha, “Unstarred Question No. 367: Nuclear Power Plants”, op. cit.
232 - NEI, “Only one power reactor remains in operation in Japan”, 10 November 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsonly-one-power-reactor-remains-in-operation-in-japan-8354484, accessed 15 May 2021.
233 - JAIF, “Mihama-3 Restarts after Decade-long Hiatus”, 28 June 2021,
see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/mihama-3-restarts-after-decade-long-hiatus/, accessed 17 August 2021.
234 - Tsuyoshi Kawamura, “Nuclear agency bans TEPCO from transferring fuel at Niigata plant”, The Asahi Shimbun, 15 April 2021,
see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14331159, accessed 2 May 2021.
235 - The Mainichi Shimbun, “TEPCO banned from restarting nuclear plant over safety flaws”, 14 April 2021,
see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210414/p2g/00m/0na/050000c, accessed 20 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 101Figure 29 · Rise and Fall of the Japanese Nuclear Program

Rise and Fall of the Japanese Nuclear Program - 1963 to July 2021
Fleet (in GW) and Electricity Generation (in TWh)
Nuclear Fleet in GW

Electricity Generation in TWh

60

300

Generation
50

250

40

200

Nuclear Capacity
in Operation

30

150

20

100

10

50

0

63 1965© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020 7/21

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Note: This figure considers Ikata-3 in LTO since 2019. The reactor was shut down in December 2019 for maintenance and refueling.

The restart of Mihama-3 is significant as it is the first reactor granted a 20-year license
extension by the NRA to resume operations. The reactor is owned by Kansai Electric Power
Company (KEPCO), which had been at the center of a bribery and corruption scandal in
2019‑2020 (see WNISR2020). Kansai Electric is also planning to restart Takahama-1 and -2,
during the second half of 2021 and into 2022. Both reactors have also been granted license
extensions by the NRA.
Citizen initiated lawsuits against nuclear plants have continued to destabilize reactor
operations in Japan. On 4 December 2020, for the first time a district court ruled that the
NRA was not applying its regulations correctly and that the operating license for Ohi-3 and -4
should be withdrawn.236
No additional reactors have been declared for permanent closure during the past year, thus thetotal remains unchanged at 21 reactors (including the ten at Fukushima Daiichi & Daini). With
one additional restart, Mihama-3, and one of the previously restarted reactors, Ikata-3, meetingthe LTO criteria again, as of 1 July 2021, 24 reactors remain in LTO. WNISR has considered foryears that the four reactors at Fukushima Daini will never restart. (See Figure 30 and Annex 2
for a detailed listing of the Japanese Reactor Program).

236 - Nikkei Asia, “Japan court nullifies approval of Oi nuclear reactor safety steps”, 4 December 2020,see https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/Japan-court-nullifies-approval-of-Oi-nuclear-reactor-safety-steps, accessed 3 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 102Figure 30 · Status of the Japanese Reactor Fleet

Status of Reactors Officially Operational in Japan vs. WNISR Assessment
in Units, as of year end 2005–2020 and mid-2021
2006
2007
KashiwazakiKashiwazaki-Kariwa
Kariwa-5 in LTO
2–4 in LTO
until restart(never restarted afterin 2010
Niigata Earth Quake)

50

2015
5 reactors :2 (2010) &3 (2011)2011
Fukushima
Daiichi 1–4
closed40

2014
Fukushima
Daiichi-5 & -6
(2011)

2016
Ikata-1(2011)

1 July 2021
Officially Operating
33 Reactors
2018
Ikata-2(2012)
Ohi-1 & -2,
Onagawa-1*(2011)WNISR Status
9 Operating:Sendai-1 & -2,
Takahama-3 & -4, Ohi-3 & -4,
Genkai-3 & -4, Mihama-3.
24 in LTO of which
Kashiwasaki-Kariwa 2–4
since 2007.

2019
Genkai-2,
Fukushima
Daini-1–4(2011)

YEAR: Officially closed(YEAR): last production year,
WNISR Closure

30

StatusOperatingLong Term Outageof which since2007 Earth Quake

20

10

0

WNISR Closed

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

* To be decomissioned, but notofficially closed yet© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

In 2020, nuclear power in Japan produced 43 TWh contributing 5.1 percent to the Japan’s
electricity generation.237 This compares with 65.7 TWh and a 7.5 percent share in 2019, thelargest share of nuclear generated electricity since 2011 (when it fell to 18 percent), comparedwith 29 percent in 2010 and the historic high of 36 percent in 1998. (See Figure 29.)
As a matter of comparison, according to IEA data, solar PV generation in 2020 was 78.7 TWhor 7.9 percent of electricity production, up 10 percent over the previous year and outpacing
nuclear power.238
As in past years, from a Japanese utility perspective, there have been both positive and negative
developments for the future of nuclear power in Japan, including the potential role it could
play in decarbonization and emission reductions. During the past year, the new governmentof Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced more ambitious emissions reduction goals for2030 and a commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.239 The Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry’s (METI) Green Growth vision for 2050, without setting firm targets,envisages renewable energy as providing 50–60 percent of electricity by 2050, and that nuclear

237 - These numbers are from IAEA-PRIS. Numbers vary significantly according to sources. The IEA, for example, indicates a total
national net electricity production of 991 TWh for 2020 with nuclear plants providing 41.9 TWh or 4.2%, cf. IEA, “Monthly Electricity
Statistics”, July 2021, see https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/monthly-electricity-statistics, accessed 20 July 2021.
238 - IEA, “Monthly Electricity Statistics”, July 2021, see https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/monthly-electricitystatistics, accessed 20 July 2021.
239 - Naoki Kikuchi, “Suga raises the bar on cutting emissions to net zero by 2050”, The Asahi Shimbun, 26 October 2020,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13872287, accessed 26 April 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

together with fossil fuel and Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS), would be 30–
40 percent.240
The process of reviewing the latest Strategic Energy Plan, which is due to be completed insummer 2021, also provided a platform for advocates of continued and even expanded nuclear
power generation in Japan. The current plan, with a 20–22 percent target for nuclear electricity
generation by 2030, is likely to remain unchanged this year. However, Kyodo News reported inJune 2021 that the government “dropped the key phrase” that it “will continue to seek to makethe most of nuclear power” following protests from Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and
Administrative Reform Minister Taro Kono.241
As WNISR reported in 2019 and 2020, the industry has been working to counter unfavorable
electricity market conditions. Significantly, this included the launch in April 2020 of a Capacity
Market for the year 2024–2025. Calculations by WNISR suggest that seven of the nine reactorsthat had restarted as of 2020, secured contracts under the capacity market which should yield¥67.2 billion (US$613 million) in additional income for three utilities (Kansai Electric, Kyushu
Electric and Shikoku Electric) in 2024–2025.
As in previous years, a consistent majority of Japanese citizens, when polled, continue tooppose the sustained reliance on nuclear power, support its early phase-out, and remain
opposed to the restart of reactors.242

Kansai Electric Dominates Nuclear Operations
KEPCO’s past year can be considered largely positive in terms of moving towards additional
reactor restarts. On the current trajectory the utility within the next 12 months could be
operating seven nuclear reactors. This is despite the major scandal that engulfed KEPCO in 2019and early 2020, and a historic Osaka District Court ruling against its Ohi reactors (see Judicial
Decisions on Damages and Criminal Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear Accidents).
As detailed in WNISR2020, a decades-long bribery and corruption scandal in Fukui Prefecture
in western Japan extended from local contractors, a former Takahama mayor, local prefectural
officials, a chapter of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and executives of KEPCO,
including the President (see also Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy).243 Long considered thenuclear peninsula of Japan, Fukui Prefecture hosts 11 KEPCO reactors, four of which are slated
for decommissioning.
As reported in WNISR2020, restarts for KEPCO’s Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs)
Takahama-1 and -2, and Mihama-3, which passed NRA review for respective upgrading plans
240 - METI, “‘Green Growth Strategy Through Achieving Carbon Neutrality in 2050’ Formulated”, Press Release, 25 December 2020,
Revised in March 2021, see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2020/1225_001.html, accessed 3 May 2021.
241 - Kyodo News, “Japan softens commitment to nuclear power in draft growth strategy”, 3 June 2021, see https://english.kyodonews.
net/news/2021/06/f98a18adaaf9-japan-softens-commitment-to-nuclear-power-in-draft-growth-strategy.html, accessed 3 June 2021.
242 - Robin Harding, “Fukushima nuclear disaster haunts Japan’s climate change debate”, Financial Times, 11 March 2021,
see https://www.ft.com/content/36822cab-031d-4486-baa0-1a5e1696f989; and Charles Digges, “10 years after Fukushima, the nuclear
industry still has trouble gaining the public’s trust”, Bellona, 12 March 2021, see https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2021-03-10years-after-fukushima-the-nuclear-industry-still-lacks-the-publics-trust, both accessed 21 July 2021.
243 - The Japan Times, “LDP chapter led by ex-defense chief Inada got donations from firm with ties to man at heart of Kepco scandal”,
5 October 2019, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/05/national/ldp-chapter-headed-tomomi-inada-got-donationssecurity-company-linked-former-takahama-deputy-mayor-eiji-moriyama/, accessed 10 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 in 2016, were delayed going into 2020 and there were further delays during the past year.
In March 2020, KEPCO announced that completion of safety retrofits would take anotherfour months longer than planned.244 These three reactors, which are 47, 46 and 45 years old
respectively, were granted lifetime operation approval to 60 years by the NRA in 2016.245
Respective restart schedules have all been revised several times over recent years. While
KEPCO had indicated restart targets of September–October 2020 for the Takahama andMihama units, WNISR2020 noted that these were not attainable.
In the end, the first to restart was Mihama-3, on 23 June 2021, and was connected to the gridon 29 June 2021.
While there are no legal requirements that utilities receive local, prefectural assembly andGovernor approval prior to reactor operations, without approval it is not possible. Local
approval for restart of Mihama-3 was granted by the Mayor of Mihama town on 15 February 2021;
this followed local assembly approval.246 In granting approval, Mayor Hideki Toshima statedthat conditions to approve the restart, “have all been met, including understanding fromthe townspeople and consent from the municipal assembly, as well as promising feedback
over regional development by the central government and Kansai Electric”, adding, “Bothsupporters and skeptics of the reactor restart are concerned about its safety. I will make sureto pay attention to the process.”247 Tatsuji Sugimoto, the Governor of Fukui, granted approval
for the Mihama-3 restart on 28 April 2021.248 However, the NRA requires that the emergency
safety center onsite be completed by 25 October 2021. KEPCO will not complete construction
by this time but instead chose to restart the reactor anyway in June 2021 and will operate thereactor during the summer months and then shut it down again prior to the NRA deadline in
October 2021. Nuclear fuel loading was completed on 22 May 2021. The reactor was connectedto the grid on 29 June 2021249, and full operation was achieved on 4 July 2021.250 KEPCO
announced on 2 August 2021 that after shutdown of Mihama-3 in October 2021, following
completion of safety retrofits, the reactor will be restarted on 30 October 2022.251

244 - Jiji Press, “Kansai Electric Puts Off Restart of N-Reactors in Fukui Pref.”, as published on nippon.com, 31 March 2020,see https://www.nippon.com/en/news/ yjj2020033100928/kansai-electric-puts-off-restart-of-n-reactors-in-fukui-pref.html,
accessed 29 May 2021.
245 - Noriyuki Ishii, “NRA Approves Extensions of Operating Periods to 60 Years for Takahama-1 and -2, the First for Aging Reactors”,
JAIF, 22 June 2016, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-approves-extensions-of-operating-periods-to-60-years-for-takahama-1-and-2the-first-for-aging-reactors/; and Noriyuki Ishii, “NRA Approves Extension of Operating Lifetime for Mihama-3 through 2036”,
JAIF, 17 November 2019, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-approves-extension-of-operating-lifetime-for-mihama-3-through-2036/;
both accessed 28 May 2021.
246 - The Mainichi Shimbun, “Japan town mayor OKs restarting nuclear reactor over 40 years old”, 16 February 2021,
see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210216/p2a/00m/0na/008000c, accessed 10 May 2021.
247 - Ibidem.
248 - WNN, “Fukui governor approves restart of three reactors”, 28 April 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Fukuigovernor-gives-go-ahead-for-restart-of-three, accessed 13 June 2021.
249 - Kenta Nagai, “Mihama-3 Restarted After Decade-long Hiatus: First Restart in Japan of a Reactor Operating Beyond 40 Years”,
JAIF, 2 July 2021, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/mihama-3-restarted-after-decade-long-hiatus-first-restart-in-japan-of-a-reactoroperating-beyond-40-years/.
250 - JAIF, “Fuel Loading Completed at Mihama-3”, 28 May 2021, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/fuel-loading-completed-at-mihama-3npp/, accessed 30 May 2021; and Jiji Press, “Mihama No. 3 Reactor Returns to Full Operations”, 5 July 2021, as published on nippon.com,
see https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2021070400261/, accessed 4 August 2021.
251 - KEPCO, “美浜発電所３号機、高浜発電所１、２号機および大飯発電所３、４号機の • 特定重大事故等対処施設の運用開始時期と運転計画等について” [“About the operation start time and operation plan of the facility for dealing with specific serious
accidents”], 2 August 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.kepco.co.jp/corporate/pr/2021/pdf/20210802_3j.pdf, accessed 17 August 2021.

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For Takahama-1 and -2 restart will only take place after completion of emergency safety controlcenter construction. The NRA deadline for installation of these was 9 June 2021, which KEPCO
was unable to meet. In February 2021, restart approval was granted by Mayor Yutaka Nose of
the prefectural town of Takahama; the Municipal Assembly has also approved of the move.252
As with Mihama-3, Governor Sugimoto granted approval for restart of Takahama-1 and -2 on
28 April 2021. Fuel loading for Unit 1 began on 14 May 2021.
One factor that had been reported as an additional obstacle to prefectural approval was theissue of spent fuel storage. In the end, the political and economic weight of KEPCO asserted
itself. The governor of Fukui had requested that KEPCO present its plans for securing a storage
facility for spent fuel outside Fukui Prefecture, a condition of granting approval for restart of
the Mihama and Takahama reactors. In February 2021, KEPCO President, Takashi Morimoto,
had told the Fukui Governor that the utility would pursue all possibilities, including joint use(as the spent fuel intermediate storage facility) of the recyclable spent fuel storage center in
Mutsu City, in Aomori Prefecture.253 He also said that KEPCO would not operate the reactor
for more than 40 years without the determination of an external spent fuel site.254
Morimoto had earlier told Sugimoto that the company would present a candidate site in2020 for the spent fuel facility but acknowledged and apologized at the end of the year thatit “cannot state a specific place as of this time.”255 After further meetings with Japaneseministers, Sugimoto indicated that he was no longer applying the condition of spent fuelstorage prior to reactor approval. However, the prefectural assembly in February refused
to consider the restart of Takahama and Mihama, with members accusing the Governor of
backing down on his earlier position. On 6 April 2021, Sugimoto met with the head of the
Fukui prefectural assembly and explained that central government had proposed new grants
to local governments hosting aging nuclear plants of up to ¥2.5 billion (US$23 million) per
nuclear plant.256 On 23 April 2021 the assembly gave its consent to restart. Governor Sugimoto
granted approval with an undertaking from KEPCO that they will identify a candidate spent
fuel storage site by the end of FY2023 (31 March 2024); if not, KEPCO President Morimoto
said, “we will work until we reach a determination, with the unwavering resolve that we will
not operate Mihama-3 or Takahama-1 or -2.”257 There are very limited prospects that a site
outside Fukui Prefecture will be secured for spent fuel for KEPCO within this timeframe, but
this does not mean the reactors will really be shut down as a consequence. But it may have
252 - The Mainichi Shimbun, “Japan town mayor OKs restarting nuclear reactor over 40 years old”, 16 February 2021, op. cit.
253 - The Mutsu facility has yet to receive spent fuel (currently scheduled for March 2022) but was built with the intention to store
5000 tons of spent fuel only from TEPCO and Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC). The Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co. at Mutsu
is wholly owned by TEPCO and JAPC. In December 2020, the Federation of Electric Power Companies indicated that they wereconsidering opening up the Mutsu facility to other utilities, but there have been no detailed plans and the mayor of Mutsu has
expressed his opposition.
See Jiji Press, “Aomori spent nuclear fuel site may be opened up to other utilities”, The Japan Times, 11 December 2020,see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/11/national/shared-nuclear-fuel-facility-aomori/; and nippon.com, “Mutsu
Mayor Opposes N-Fuel Facility Joint Use Plan”, 18 December 2020, see https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2020121800914/,
both accessed May 2021.
254 - Kaoru Ohno, “Site for Spent Fuel Intermediate Storage Facility Outside Fukui Prefecture to Be Determined by End of 2023”,
JAIF, 17 February 2021, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/site-for-spent-fuel-intermediate-storage-facility-outside-fukui-prefecture-to-bedetermined-by-end-of-2023/, accessed 28 May 2021.
255 - Ibidem.
256 - The Asahi Shimbun, “Fukui governor ignored condition for restart of aging nuke plants”, 29 April 2021,
see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14340146, accessed 29 May 2021.
257 - Op. cit. JAIF, 17 February 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 been a factor in the 2 August 2021 announcement of KEPCO to not plan to restart Takahama-1
and -2 until June and July 2023, nearly three years later than KEPCO’s original schedule.258
On the basis of the current schedule, the eventual operation of Takahama-1–4, Ohi-3 and -4
and Mihama-3, would mean that KEPCO by 2023 will account for seven of twelve reactors
operating in Japan—assuming no further delays to Kashiwazaki-Kariwa restart.
Under the license extensions granted by the NRA, Takahama-1 and -2 reactors will be permitted
to operate until November 2034 and November 2035 respectively; while Mihama-3 could
operate until December 2036. Under NRA regulations, the license extension is supposed to
be granted under special circumstances, implying not for all reactors, and cannot be extended
further. Whether this changes over the coming years remains to be seen.

Nuclear Regulatory Safety Standards Challenged
The past year has witnessed significant rulings from law courts across Japan that underscorethe continuing uncertainties for future reactor operation, as well as highlighting some of
the underlying safety issues that remain unresolved (see Judicial Decisions on Damages andCriminal Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident).
While KEPCO is making progress to having the single largest number of reactors operatingin Japan, prospects for those operations were dealt a potentially significant blow in
December 2020. The Ohi-3 and -4 reactors were the subject of a historic legal ruling on
4 December 2020259 when the Osaka District Court ruled that the NRA approval for operating
the two reactors was illegal. This is the first time a Japanese court has withdrawn government
approval granted to a utility to operate a nuclear plant under the post Fukushima safety
guidelines adopted in 2013. KEPCO, which was an intervenor for the government in the lawsuit,described the ruling as “extremely regrettable and totally unacceptable.”260 An appeal against
the judgement was filed on 17 December 2020 and consequently the reactors are permitted
to continue to operate pending the result of the appeal.261 The first hearing of the appeal caseopened in the Osaka District Court on 8 June 2021.262
The court ruling was the first against the NRA over how it applies the new safety regulationsin the screening process for reactor restarts, and specifically the seismic standards which wereadopted post Fukushima and outline in a Guide for the Evaluation of Standard Seismic Motion.
258 - KEPCO, “美浜発電所３号機、高浜発電所１、２号機および大飯発電所３、４号機の • 特定重大事故等対処施設の運用開始時
期と運転計画等について”, 2 August 2021, op. cit.
259 - Kyodo News, “Japan court nixes approval of post-Fukushima nuclear safety steps”, 4 December 2020,see https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/12/8c717cf8568d-urgent-japan-court-nullifies-approval-of-oi-nuclear-reactor-safetysteps.html, accessed 29 May 2021.
260 - Ibidem.
261 - Jiji Press, “Japanese government launches appeal over Oi nuclear plant restart”, as published by The Japan Times,
18 December 2020, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/18/national/oi-nuclear-plant-restart-appeal/; and KEPCO,“KEPCO’s handling of the Osaka district court’s ruling that revoked regulatory approval for the Ohi No.3 and 4”, 17 December 2020,see https://www.kepco.co.jp/english/corporate/ir/brief/pdf/2020_dec17_1.pdf; both accessed 29 May 2021. Note that due to extended
outages for the completion of emergency control centers, both Ohi-3 and -4 were not operational at the time of 4 December 2020 court
ruling.
262 - Mihama No Kai, “第１回控訴審 ６月８日（火）（大阪高裁）大飯原発3・4号設置変更許可の取り消しを求める裁判” [“1st Appeal
Trial June 8 (Tuesday) (Osaka High Court) Trial seeking revocation of permission to change the installation of Ohi Nuclear Power
Plant Nos. 3 and 4”], JCA-NET, 7 June 2021 (in Japanese), see http://www.jca.apc.org/mihama/ooisaiban/annai20210608.htm,
accessed 7 June 2021.

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However, rather than apply the ruling and reassess the approval for all reactors in Japan, the
NRA has sought to dismiss the implications of the judgement. On 3 March 2021, Toyoshi Fuketa,
chair of the regulatory body, stated that the guide was only a reference and neither the utility
nor the NRA should be bound by it. In addition, a proposal was put forward to change thespecific reference to variation to seek to bypass the Osaka court ruling. The move by the NRA
was strongly condemned by over 100 NGOs across Japan.263
While prospects for restart improved for KEPCO during 2020–2021, Moody’s kept its creditratings outlook negative264 following its downgrading in March 2020.265 This reflected Moody’s
concerns over Kansai Electric’s oversight, control and governance matters, which increases
risk to the ongoing operation of its nuclear reactors. The bribery scandal could lead to higher
negative public sentiment on nuclear plants in Japan, impeding Kansai Electric’s nuclear
business and risking the competitiveness it has as a provider of low-cost nuclear power in the
deregulated retail market.266

Kashiwazaki Kariwa Safety/Security Scandal and Restart Setback

We have grave concerns about whether we can continue tooperate the nuclear power generation business.
Tomoaki Kobayakawa, TEPCO President, April 2021.267

Prospects for the restart of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)’s Advanced Boiling Water
Reactors (ABWRs) Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 and -7 in Niigata Prefecture suffered a significant
blow in early 2021, when NRA commissioners ordered a halt to planned refueling operations
for Unit 7 until corrective measures were taken in response to security breaches at the site. The
NRA rated the situation at the plant at the most serious level on its four-tier assessment scale,saying that the security flaws could have led the plant to a grave situation in terms of nuclear
material protection.268
The origin of the NRA Commissioners decision was that on 20 September 2020 a TEPCO
employee at the nuclear plant used a colleague’s identity card to enter the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
central control room. The guard on duty covered up the incident. Once it realized what had
happened, TEPCO failed to notify the Niigata prefectural government and the Kashiwazaki
263 - CNIC, “抗議・要請書 — 原子力規制委員会 更田委員長の「審査ガイド」パブコメ無用発言に抗議する” [“Nuclear Regulatory
Commission Chairman Fuketa’s ‘Examination Guide’ Protests Public Comments”], 9 March 2021 (in Japanese), see http://www.jca.apc.
org/mihama/ooisaiban/objection_to_huketa20210309.pdf, accessed 28 May 2021.
264 - Moody’s Investor Services, “[MJKK]関西電力の国内普通社債に A3 の格付を付与” [“Kansai Electric Power’s domestic straight
corporate bonds are given an A3 rating”], 9 April 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.
aspx?docid=PR_443746, accessed 16 May 2021.
265 - Moody’s Investor Services, “Moody’s affirms Kansai Electric’s A3 ratings but changes outlook to negative”, 24 March 2020,see https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-affirms-Kansai-Electrics-A3-ratings-but-changes-outlook-to--PR_420254,
accessed 28 May 2021.
266 - Moody’s, “Kansai Electric Power Company, Incorporated – Moody’s assigns (P)A3 to Kansai Electric’s domestic shelfregistration”, as published by Yahoo! Finance, 11 August 2020, see https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kansai-electric-power-companyincorporated-060919393.html? , accessed 4 August 2021.
267 - The Mainichi, “TEPCO banned from restarting nuclear plant over safety flaws”, 14 April 2021,
see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210414/p2g/00m/0na/050000c, accessed 20 May 2021.
268 - The Asahi Shimbun, “NRA to delay TEPCO’s reactor restart plan over ‘shoddy’ repairs”, 17 March 2021,
see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14276457, accessed 7 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 city government. The on-site NRA staff also failed to notify the NRA commissioners until
January 2021. In the subsequent follow-up investigation in February 2021, security equipment
and systems intended to detect illegal entry were found to be non-operational.269 Subsequent
investigations found that the plant was vulnerable to unauthorized entry at 15 locations since
March 2020 because of defective intruder detection systems and backups.270 The station may
not have been able to detect intrusions at ten points of entry for over 30 days. On 16 March 2021,
the NRA classified the event as “safety significance assessment, red”271, then on 23 March as
an inspection handling category 4 event.272 On 14 April 2021, TEPCO received an order thatbanned Kashiwazaki-Kariwa from transporting specified nuclear fuel materials until theinspection handling category was changed to Category 1.273
There was also partial loss of function to nuclear material protection equipment. “Systematic
monitoring functionality failed, and the effectiveness of the physical protection system could
not be adequately confirmed for a long period of time. In terms of nuclear safeguarding, it
could have resulted in a grave situation,” the regulatory body said.274 NRA chair Fuketa statedthat “using common sense it should be clear that this process cannot be completed within
one year”; while malfunctioning counterterrorism equipment had been corrected, the more
important issue is whether the utility has a “nuclear safety culture from bottom to top.”275
Both disclosures led to questions of the overall security preparedness of Japanese nuclear
facilities.276
The scandal that subsequently engulfed TEPCO stands in contrast to the progress it madetowards restart in late 2020. A series of submissions and approvals were made in October–
November 2020.277

269 - Niigata Nippo, “ずさん過ぎる管理体制露呈—柏崎刈羽原発不正入室問題” [“Exposing a management system that is too
sloppy—Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant’s Unauthorized Entry Problem”], 9 February 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/news/national/20210209597764.html, accessed 30 May 2021.
270 - Kyodo/Jiji Press, “Tepco banned from restarting its largest nuclear plant over safety flaws”, as published in The Japan Times,
14 April 2021, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/04/14/national/tepco-nuclear-plant-restart-ban/, accessed 7 June 2021.
271 - Significance of events in terms of safety is classified into “red”, “yellow”, “white”, “green” depending on the degree by which
the safety of nuclear power facilities was degraded. Red is defined as “large impact on safety functions or performance” and whiteis “impact on safety functions or performance, and decrease in safety margins, but improvements can be made with regulatory
involvement”, see Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc., “FY2020 Financial Results (April 1, 2020 – March 31, 2021”, Released
28 April 2021, TEPCO, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/about/ir/library/presentations/pdf/210428_1-e.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.
272 - Ibidem. Handling categories for additional inspections are separated into Category 1 to Category 5 depending on the inspection
indication significance assessment and safety performance index classification. Category 2 is defined as “monitored activities satisfy
objectives, but the operator’s safety activities have slightly degraded” and Category 4 is defined as “monitored activities satisfy
objectives, but the operator’s safety activities have significantly degraded, or have been in a degraded state for a long period of time.”
273 - Ibidem.
274 - The Japan Times, “Japanese nuclear plant vulnerable to unauthorized entry for one year”, 17 March 2021,
see https://www.japantimes.co.jp%2Fnews%2F2021%2F03%2F17%2Fnational%2Fnuclear-plant-vulnerable%2F&usg=AOvVaw1dXxWm
uCe6MYX5Br14QvEy, accessed 4 August 2021.
275 - Dennis Engbarth, “NRA Slams the Door on Kashiwazaki Kariwa Restarts”, NIW, 26 March 2021,
see https://www.energyintel.com/pages/eig_article.aspx?DocID=1101578, accessed 7 June 2021.
276 - Osamu Tsukimori, “Tepco lapse a wake-up call for Japan’s nuclear security protocols, expert says”, The Japan Times,
15 April 2021, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/04/15/national/nra-niigata-tepco-nuclear-security/, accessed 7 June 2021.
277 - On 14 October 2020, the NRA approved TEPCO’s application for the design and construction plan for Unit 7; On 30
October 2020, the NRA approved TEPCO’s application for authorization of safety regulation revision; on 6 November 2020, theapplication for pre-service confirmation for Unit 7 was submitted to the NRA – see TEPCO, “FY2020 3rd Quarter Financial Results(April 1 – December 31, 2020) – Overview of FY2020 3rd Quarter Financial Results”, Released 10 February 2021,
see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/about/ir/library/presentations/pdf/210210_1-e.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.

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In October 2020, the NRA commissioners approved a report from TEPCO on the modernizationand strengthening of safety measures at Kashiwazaki Kariwa-7.278 This approval came one
month after the NRA secretariat knew of the security failures at the site, but according to the
NRA, the commissioners were not informed until January 2021.
Even as late as mid-January 2021, the prospects towards local approval for restart seemed to
be on track. TEPCO informed the local mayors in Kashiwazaki and Kariwa villages that safetymeasures would be completed at Unit 7 on 13 January 2021.279 Mayor Sakurai of Kashiwazaki
said at a meeting with TEPCO that, “the first half of this year will be an important time for
TEPCO, Kashiwazaki City, and Japan,” and expressed his hope that discussions on the restart
issue would begin. Kariwa Mayor Shinada told TEPCO that, “I am convinced that it is the year
when Unit 7 will move. I want you to proceed with your work firmly.”280
By late January and into February 2021, TEPCO officials were apologizing across Niigata as
well as to the House Budget Committee in the national Diet.281 In a meeting with LDP officialsin Niigata on 30 January 2021, the TEPCO official was told by the LDP Secretary General that,“There are doubts about the ability of the parties (to operate the nuclear power plant) and eventhe eligibility as a company. It will be a problem if you do not think about how to deal withit.”282
TEPCO announced in February 2021 that it was disciplining its officials, including
President Kobayakawa, noting that it, “considers this incident to be of the utmost seriousness
and the decision has been made to take the following disciplinary action against the following
individuals in order to further clarify managerial responsibility and thoroughly implement
recurrence prevention measures.”283
It was reported that TEPCO had been aiming to restart Unit 7 as early as June 2021, following
securing of local consent. As a result of the security violation disclosures, the LDP Secretary
General in Niigata described the TEPCO schedule as “a charade”, adding “there is no restart
within the year. It will return to the original and start from scratch.”284

278 - NEI, “Japan’s NRA approves restart plans for Kashiwazaki-Kariva 7”, 19 October 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsjapans-nra-approves-restart-plans-for-kashiwazaki-kariva-7-8191173, accessed 30 May 2021;
279 - Niigata Nippo, “柏崎原発７号機工事 13日にも終了東電、下旬から５会場で説明会”, 13 January 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/news/national/20210113592779.html, accessed 29 May 2021 (machine-translated). In the end,
TEPCO did not complete all measures by this date; see TEPCO, “Correction regarding Completed Safety Measure Renovations at
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station Unit 7 implemented to Comply with the New Regulatory Requirements”, Press Release,
27 January 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/20210127_01.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
280 - Niigata Nippo, “柏崎原発７号機工事 13日にも終了東電、下旬から５会場で説明会”, 13 January 2021, op. cit.
281 - Niigata Nippo, “東電社長 衆院予算委で謝罪” [“President of TEPCO apologizes to the House of Representatives’
Budget Committee”], 10 February 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/news/politics/20210210598119.html,
accessed 29 May 2021.
282 - Niigata Nippo, “新潟本社代表が自民県連幹部に謝罪” [“Niigata head office representative apologizes to LDP executives”],
30 January 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/news/politics/20210130596056.html, (machine-translated),
accessed 29 May 2021.
283 - TEPCO, “Disciplinary Action”, Press Release, 15 February 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/20210215_02.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
284 - Niigata Nippo, “新潟本社代表が自民県連幹部に謝罪”, 30 January 2021, op. cit.

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The NRA concluded in April that TEPCO had, “failed to inspect, maintain [nuclear material
protection equipment],” and “failed to perform regular assessments and improvements”.285
On 22 April 2021, TEPCO submitted to the NRA a notice of change to the construction planpertaining to the reactor installation permission for facilities subject to design standards andsevere accident handling equipment at Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station Unit 7.286
TEPCO’s plans for facilities subject to design standards and severe accident handlingequipment is now “undetermined” since they “do not know when we will be able to move
forward with our original plan as we received the order from NRA on April 14, 2021.”287
In June 2021, TEPCO announced the creation of an Independent Review Committee on
Nuclear Material Protection.288 The Committee is tasked with the assessment of the validityof cause analysis and fact-finding investigations performed by TEPCO; analyze organizational
factors and assess corporate culture including its safety culture and nuclear security culture,and identify signs of degradation pertaining to the incidents being investigated; and propose
remedial measures based upon the corporate culture assessment. The results of a root cause
analysis of the physical protection incident and responses to the incident are to be reported
to the NRA by 23 September 2021, 289 after which the NRA will review TEPCO compliancemeasures.
The disclosures of TEPCO’s security and safety failures at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant took
place in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents. As aresult of the 2011 disaster, any exposure of safety and security failures by TEPCO is particularly
sensitive. The disclosures have therefore destabilized TEPCO’s timetable for restarting reactor
units at the Niigata plant but have also damaged the reputation of the NRA. These issues
are particularly sensitive for the people of Niigata who have experienced the 2007 Niigata
Chuetsu-oki quake at Kashiwazaki Kariwa and multiple TEPCO scandals over the decades.290
Units 2–4 were never restarted since the 2007 quake.
In 2017, TEPCO’s announced aim was to restart Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 and -7 within fiscal
year 2019, or 2020, or 2021.291 WNISR2018 concluded that the earliest the reactors could restart
285 - TEPCO, “TEPCO’s Reply to the Notification of Order Issued by NRA in Accordance with Article 43.3.23 Paragraph 2 of the Act on
the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors”, Press Release, 7 April 2021,
see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/20210407_01.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
286 - TEPCO, “Submission of Notice of Change to Construction Plan pertaining to the Reactor Installation Permission for the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station”, Press Release, 22 April 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/20210422_02.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
287 - The order from the NRA is in accordance with Article 43.3.23 Paragraph 2 of the Act on the Regulation of Nuclear Source
Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors and states, “TEPCO may not move specified nuclear fuel material at the KashiwazakiKariwa Nuclear Power Station until the NRA notifies TEPCO that the nuclear regulatory inspection handling category stipulated for
the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station has been changed to Category 1.” See TEPCO, “TEPCO, “Submission of Notice of
Change to Construction Plan pertaining to the Reactor Installation Permission for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station”,
22 April 2021, op. cit.
288 - TEPCO, “Establishment of an Independent Review Committee on Nuclear Material Protection”, Press Release, 2 June 2021,
see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/20210602_01.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
289 - TEPCO, “Status of Initiatives Pertaining to Nuclear Material Protection at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power
Station”, Attachment 2, 10 June 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/pdf/210610e0102.pdf,
accessed 4 August 2021.
290 - KK Scientists, “We demand that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant be closed”, Group of Concerned Scientists andEngineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, Nuke Info Tokyo, March-April 2008, No. 123,
see http://www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/pdffiles/nit123.pdf, accessed 27 April 2019.
291 - Shaun Burnie, “TEPCO’s Atomic Delusion”, Greenpeace Japan, 25 June 2018, see https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4japan-stateless/2019/08/3d2e8976-atomic_delusion.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 would be 2021, but only if TEPCO were to overcome significant obstacles. Even without thelatest scandal, it remains doubtful that restart could have taken place in June 2021. The resultof the scandal has set further back TEPCO’s plans with no restart scheduled for 2021. However,the financial pressure on TEPCO is such that restart remains a priority for the company andall the resultant political and economic lobbying that will be deployed to secure approval
within Niigata. TEPCO confirmed that it is aiming for a 2022 restart “at the earliest”, withthe publication of its Fourth Comprehensive Special Business Plan on 21 July 2021.292 However,there remain major obstacles to even achieving this objective.
Underlying safety issues remain central to public and political opposition within Niigata
Prefecture to any restart. The Kashiwazaki Kariwa site has a history of major seismic activity,with repeated underestimates and non-disclosures of the seismic risks by TEPCO and resultant
coverups. At the time of the licensing of Units 6 and 7 in 1991, TEPCO presented evidence tothe regulator that the nearby fault lines were not active. This was then proven to be incorrect,
with TEPCO’s own data showing that they were aware of active faults as early as 1980. None ofthis was made public until after the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-oki quake.293
NGO’s and seismologists remain deeply concerned about the multiple seismic fault lines in
the area of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa site, including through the site.294 There are large-scale
submarine active faults offshore with four main ones, three of which run along either edge of
the Sado Basin, a depression between Sado Island and mainland Kashiwazaki.295 Seismologists
have long warned about the threat from major earthquakes leading to a severe nuclear accident
at Kashiwazaki Kariwa.296 Independent seismologists and citizens’ groups continue to oppose
restart of the reactors, including based on evidence that TEPCO has relied on flawed seismic
assessments.297
Meanwhile, legal challenges seeking permanent closure are ongoing. A citizen initiative waslaunched in March 2021 which has the potential to further delay, and even prevent, restartat Kashiwazaki Kariwa.298 The initiative aims to extend the consent rights for restart tocommunities beyond the city of Kashiwazaki and the village of Kariwa. Based on the agreementin Ibaraki Prefecture for Tokai-2 (Tokai Daini), the aim would be to require TEPCO to secure
approval from all seven municipalities within the 30-km evacuation-preparation area (UPZ). If
successful, the initiative will be a potentially major obstacle to restart the Kashiwazaki Kariwa

292 - TEPCO Holdings, “第四次総合特別事業計画”, 21 July 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.tepco.co.jp/press/release/2021/
pdf3/210721j0301.pdf, accessed 17 August 2021.
293 - Katsuhiko Ishibashi and Mitsuhisa Watanabe, “Earthquakes and Ground Condition – Just how safe is the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
Nuclear Power Plant?”, KK Scientists, Originally Published in Japanese, 24 February 2008, Translation published in CNIC, Nuke Info
Tokyo, Special Edition, No. 123, March/April 2008, op. cit.
294 - Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Fault Study Group, “柏崎刈羽原子力発電所敷地ならびにその周辺の” [“Kashiwazaki
Kariwa Nuclear Power Station site and its surroundings— Request for a rigorous scientific review on stratigraphy of Middle and Upper
Pleistocene”], 22 May 2017 (in Japanese), as published in Masaaki Tateishi, “柏崎刈羽原子力発電所敷地内の断層について（１）”, FC2,
3 June 2017, see http://masatate.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-55.html, accessed 27 April 2019.
295 - KK Scientists, “We demand that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant be closed”, Nuke Info Tokyo, 9 March 2008, op. cit.
296 - Ishibashi Katsuhiko, “Why Worry? Japan’s Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage”, The Asia-Pacific Journal,
1 August 2007, Vol. 5, Issue 8, see http://apjjf.org/-Ishibashi-Katsuhiko/2495/article.html, accessed 27 April 2019.
297 - Tateishi Masaaki, “柏崎刈羽原発、寺尾断層露頭の東電解釈への疑義”, 30 January 2019 (in Japanese),see http://masatate.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-64.html, both accessed 27 April 2019.
298 - Niigata Nippo, “新安全協定案 初の住民説明会 – 長岡市 柏崎刈羽原発30キロ圏議員研究会”, 29 March 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/news/politics/20210329607002.html, accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 reactors, given that the communities do not directly receive financial incentives from either
TEPCO or the central government for hosting the nuclear power plants.
Following the discovery of security failures at Kashiwazaki Kariwa, breaches in security
provisions were also found at TEPCO’s closed Fukushima Daini power plant, andShikoku Electric’s Ikata plant. These were announced by the NRA on 19 May 2021, where it
reported that the security failures were at the least serious level in the nuclear watchdog’sfour-point scale assessment about protection of nuclear substances.299

Prospects for Other Additional Reactor Operations
All currently operating reactors in Japan are Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs)—thedestroyed Fukushima Daiichi units were Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). As of 1 July 2021,
15 reactors remain under NRA safety review (out of a total of 25 that have applied since
July 2013 of which ten were restarted); with one of those restarted reactors back in LTO since
December 2019, adding to the 23 reactors remaining in LTO, there is a total of 24 reactors in
LTO as of 1 July 2021. Not all of these will restart, with many questions and disagreements overseismic issues, and many plants far back in the review and screening queue. There are officially
two reactors under construction (Shimane-3 and Ohma). WNISR has pulled Ohma off the list,
as no active construction could be substantiated.
In addition to the June restart of Mihama-3 and Ohi-3 on 3 July 2021,300 the only reactor
scheduled for resumption of operations during the remainder of 2021 is Ikata-3. The reactor,
owned by the Shikoku Electric Power Company, is scheduled to resume operations in late
October 2021. The reactor has been off-line since December 2019, when it was shut down formaintenance. However, it was prevented from restarting following a 17 January 2020 injunction
ruling by the Hiroshima High Court in favor of residents within a 50-kilometer radius of theplant.301 On 18 March 2021 the Hiroshima High Court overturned on appeal its earlier 2020
ruling, opening the way for restart following completion of periodic inspections.302 (See
Chapter on Judicial Decisions on Damages and Criminal Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear
Accidents).

299 - The Mainichi, “Failures in counterterrorism measures uncovered at 2 nuke plants including Fukushima No. 2”, 20 May 2021,
see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210520/p2a/00m/0na/005000c, accessed 29 May 2021.
300 - KEPCO, “大飯発電所３号機の原子炉起動予定および調整運転の開始予定について” [“About the reactor start schedule andadjustment operation start schedule of Oi Power Station Unit 3”], 2 July 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.kepco.co.jp/corporate/
pr/2021/pdf/20210702_1j.pdf, accessed 18 August 2021.
301 - The Asahi Shimbun, “Residents win appeal to halt Ikata reactor over safety fears”, 17 January 2020; and Shikoku Electric Power
Co., “広島高等裁判所での抗告審における伊方発電所３号機運転差止仮処分の決定について”, 17 January 2020 (in Japanese),see https://www.yonden.co.jp/press/2019/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2020/01/17/pr006_1.pdf, accessed 28 May 2021.
302 - NEI, “As one Japanese court approves operation of Ikata 3 another bars restart of Tokai 2”, 22 March 2021, see https://www.
neimagazine.com/news/newsas-one-japanese-court-approves-operation-of-ikata-3-another-bars-restart-of-tokai-2-8616738,
accessed 28 May 2021.

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Tokai-2 (Tokai Daini)
Prospects for an early restart of the 1100-MW BWR Tokai-2, owned by Japan Atomic
Power Company (JAPC), remain unlikely. Court judgements in 2021 have only added to theuncertainties. The reactor, located in Ibaraki Prefecture and connected to the grid in 1978,is the closest to the Tokyo metropolitan area. It was shut down on 11 March 2011. JAPC
announced on 28 January 2020 that engineering and construction works at the plant, including
a 1.7 km long coastal levee, were taking longer than anticipated.303 On 22 February 2019,
JAPC announced its intention to proceed with the restart of Tokai-2.304 The target date is
January 2023. This followed a 7 November 2018 unanimous decision by NRA commissioners toapprove an additional 20 years of operation.305
On 28 October 2019, the board of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) approved thefinancing of ¥220 billion (US$2 billion) for Tokai-2.306 The decision is particularly controversial
as TEPCO is effectively a state-owned utility and technically bankrupt following 3/11. JAPC is
unique in Japan as it is a utility owned by all other nuclear utilities, with TEPCO owning thelion share. Failure to secure financing for Tokai-2 would have taken JAPC one step closer tobankruptcy, with serious implications for other utilities. This represents one major reason why
TEPCO and the other utilities have agreed to finance the reactor backfitting. The utility has
only one other reactor, Tsuruga-2 in Fukui Prefecture. JAPC has been in dispute with the NRA
for the past years over the designation of an active seismic fault at the site,307 and there are
currently no prospects for the reactor operating.
As previously reported in WNISR, local approval is more complicated for Tokai-2 thanother sites in Japan as the power plant is covered by an agreement between the utility andmunicipalities. There is strong public opposition within Ibaraki Prefecture to the potential
restart of Tokai-2.308 JAPC must obtain restart consent for Tokai-2 from six municipalities—
Tokai village and the cities of Hitachi, Hitachinaka, Hitachiota, Mito and Naka—as well as theprefectural government of Ibaraki before it can restart the unit. About 940,000 people live in
14 municipalities within a 30-kilometer radius of the Tokai plant and the facility is closer to theTokyo area than any other nuclear plant.
In March 2021, the Mito District Court in Ibaraki Prefecture issued an order halting operationof Tokai-2 due to an “inadequate regional evacuation plan”,309 (see Judicial Decisions on
Damages and Criminal Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear Accidents).
303 - JAPC, “東海第二発電所の原子炉設置許可に係る – 工事計画の変更について” [“Tokai-2 Nuclear Power Plant license—Aboutchange of construction plan”], Japan Atomic Power Company, Press Release, 28 January 2020 (in Japanese),see http://www.japc.co.jp/news/press/2019/pdf/200128.pdf, accessed 29 May 2021.
304 - JAPC, “東海発電所・東海第二発電所 原子力事業者防災業務計画の修正について”, Press Release, 22 February 2019
(in Japanese), see http://www.japc.co.jp/news/press/2018/pdf/310222_1.pdf, accessed 28 May 2021.
305 - JAIF, “NRA Allows Tokai-2 to Be Operated for Sixty Years, a First for a BWR”, 16 November 2018,see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-allows-tokai-2-to-be-operated-for-sixty-years-a-first-for-a-bwr/, accessed 28 May 2021.
306 - The Asahi Shimbun, “TEPCO to pour 220 billion yen into Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant”, 29 October 2019,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201910290042.html, accessed 28 May 2021.
307 - WNN, “Tsuruga 2 sits on active fault, NRA concludes”, 26 March 2015, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Tsuruga-2sits-on-active-fault-NRA-concludes-2603155.html, accessed 5 August 2021.
308 - The Asahi Shimbun, “EDITORIAL: TEPCO needs to make its case for bailing out aging nuclear plant”, 31 October 2019,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201910310032.html, accessed 28 May 2021.
309 - Kenta Nagai, “Preparations Continue Toward Restarting Tokai-2 NPP”, JAIF, 1 June 2021,
see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/preparations-continue-toward-restarting-tokai-2-npp/, accessed 5 August 2021.

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On 19 March 2021, the ruling was appealed by JAPC to the Tokyo High Court on the grounds
that its regional evacuation plan was still under consideration, and that it was therefore
premature and irrational for the court to make a substantive judgment on such a plan.310 As of
1 July 2021 the first hearing of the appeal had not been held.
Flaws in the existing evacuation plans compiled by Ibaraki Prefecture were highlighted
in May 2021.311 This included confirmation that the maximum limit of people which were
estimated to be able to be evacuated within the prefecture was 443,000. Ibaraki Prefecture
requested that the remaining 517,000 of the then population of 960,000 people be received as
evacuees by the nearby five prefectures.
On 20 May 2021, JAPC President Mamoru Muramatsu said that the company would “do its
best to issue a regional evacuation plan” but without giving a date.312
The utility in February 2020 indicated an envisaged restart date of December 2022 in its
application to the NRA for pre-operational inspections. This had been widely criticized in
the local community given that no approval had been granted and negotiations have not evenformally commenced. In January 2020, the completion of construction works at the site wasdelayed to November and December 2022, with restart scheduled for the first half of 2023.313
With likely additional cost escalations, the uncertainties in the latest construction schedule,314
and the complexities of overcoming opposition within Ibaraki and securing municipality
approval, there remains major doubt about a 2023 restart for Tokai-2, by which time it will havebeen in LTO for 12 years.

Onagawa-2
Tohoku Electric Power Company made important progress towards the restart of Onagawa-2
during the past year. Approval was granted in November 2020 by host community
Ishinomaki city and Onagawa town, followed by approval by Miyagi prefectural governor,
Yoshihiro Murai.315
On 26 February 2020, the NRA commissioners had granted permission to Tohoku Electric tomake changes to the Onagawa-2 reactor (i.e. basic design approval).316 The reactor, situated on
310 - JAPC, “東海第二発電所の運転差止等訴訟控訴審に係る•控訴理由書の提出について”[“Tokai No. 2 Power Station Operation
Injunction Proceedings Appeal Trial – About submission of reason for appeal”], Press Release, 7 May 2021 (in Japanese),see http://www.japc.co.jp/news/press/2021/pdf/210507.pdf, accessed 28 May 2021.
311 - The Mainichi, “Evacuation plan for east Japan nuclear plant was focused on inaccurate, simplified data”, 11 May 2021,
see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210511/p2a/00m/0na/017000c, accessed 12 May 2021.
312 - JAIF, “Preparations Continue Toward Restarting Tokai-2 NPP”, 1 June 2021,
see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/preparations-continue-toward-restarting-tokai-2-npp/, accessed 7 June 2021.
313 - JAPC, “２０２０年度 東海発電所・東海第二発電所の年間主要事業計画について”, 30 April 2020 (in Japanese),see http://www.japc.co.jp/news/press/2020/pdf/200430.pdf, accessed 29 May 2021.
314 - For overview of construction work in progress see JAPC, “東海・東海第二発電所の近況について（２０２１年５月）”, 12 May 2021
(in Japanese), see http://www.japc.co.jp/tokai/news/2021/pdf/tokai2105.pdf, accessed 28 May 2021.
315 - NHK, “女川原発2号機 再稼働への • 地元同意を表明 宮城県知事” [“Governor of Miyagi Prefecture announces local consent
to restart Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2”], 11 November 2020, (in Japanese), see https://www.nhk.or.jp/politics/articles/
statement/48117.html; and Motoko Hasegawa, “Japan’s Onagawa nuclear restart approved”, Argus, 12 November 2020,see https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2159129-japans-onagawa-nuclear-restart-approved, both accessed 29 May 2021.
316 - JAIF, “NRA Approves Changes to Reactor Installation for Onagawa-2 under New Regulatory Standards”, 27 February 2020,see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-approves-changes-to-reactor-installation-for-onagawa-2-under-new-regulatory-standards/,
accessed 29 May 2021.

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the Ishinomaki Peninsula on the Pacific coast of Miyagi Prefecture, was the 16th in Japan andthe fourth BWR to win approval under the NRA’s new safety standards. This major step in theapproval of the safety of the reactor was reported as meaning that Onagawa-2 will be the first
BWR to restart operations under the new guidelines, with completion of works planned by
the owner scheduled for 2021. However, two months after securing NRA regulatory approval
for its Onagawa-2 BWR, the President of Tohoku Electric announced on 30 April 2020 a twoyear delay in completion of construction work at the reactor site.317 Work is now planned to befinished by March 2023.318
With NRA approval, it was reported in February 2020 that Onagawa-2 would likely be the first
BWR to resume operations in Japan.319 As of November 2019, Tohoku Electric had committed¥340 billion (about US$20193.1 billion) in safety retrofits at the site.320
Onagawa-2 still has several stages of approval by the NRA to pass before restart. There arethree stages: Application for Permission to Install a Reactor (Basic design); Application forApproval of Construction Plan (Detailed design based on basic design); and Application forApproval of Operational Safety Program (Matters regarding operations, including operationalsafety), followed by pre inspection approval. Onagawa has passed only the first of these (Basic
Design) and still has to pass the remaining stages before restart. As with all NRA reviewprocesses, it is an enormous logistical exercise. For example, in November 2020, Tokoku
Electric submitted its third tranche of documents to the NRA which are required for review
under ‘Approval of Construction Plan’. The documents, which were on the subjects of seismic
resistance and Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) integrity, totaled 17,000 pages.
Doubts persist over the actual condition of the Onagawa reactors, including Unit 2. The
Onagawa site is the closest nuclear plant to the epicenter of the 3/11 earthquake. Unit 2 was
subcritical in startup mode on 3/11, while Units 1 and 3 were in full operation. In January 2017,
the utility disclosed to the NRA that the reactor building had sustained 1,130 cracks in thewalls and “lost an estimated 70 percent of structural rigidity” in the 3/11 earthquake.321 The
disclosures led Tohoku to push back restart schedule from 2018 to 2019 and then beyond
2020. The disclosures to the NRA followed an architectural investigation which identified
that structural rigidity, the ability to withstand earthquakes and other stresses from outside
without being distorted, was concentrated in the upper third of the reactor building with thethird floor only retaining 30 percent of its integrity compared with July 1995 when the reactor
began operation. It also confirmed a 25-percent loss of structural rigidity in the two aboveground floors and three basement levels.322

317 - Tohoku Electric, “４月定例社長記者会見概要” [“Overview of April Presidential Press Conference”], 30 April 2020 (in Japanese),see https://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/news/press/1214692_2560.html, accessed 29 May 2021.
318 - WNN, “Onagawa 2 upgrade faces further delay”, 4 May 2020, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Further-delay-incompletion-of-Onagawa-2-safety-up, accessed 5 August 2021.
319 - Shota Ushio and Yuzo Yamaguchi, “Onagawa-2 to likely be first BWR to restart since Fukushima I accident”,

S&P Global, 26 February 2020, see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/022620-onagawa-2to-likely-be-first-bwr-to-restart-since-fukushima-i-accident, accessed 29 May 2021.
320 - The Mainichi, “Editorial: Reactor restart OK a reminder Japan must abandon nuclear power”, 28 November 2019,see https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191128/p2a/00m/0na/007000c, accessed 29 May 2021.
321 - The Asahi Shimbun, “1,130 cracks, 70% rigidity lost at Onagawa reactor building”, 18 January 2017.
322 - Ibidem.

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Significantly, the disclosure contrasts starkly with the assessment and conclusions of a highprofile International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to the plant in 2012.323 The IAEA
mission included a “Structures Team” assigned to observe and collect information on theperformance of the structural elements of buildings. They reported that, as far as cracks in
Unit 2 are concerned, they were “less than 0.3mm, although at some locations there werecracks of approximately 0.8mm. These minor cracks do not affect the overall integrity of thestructure.” The IAEA concluded: “The lack of any serious damage to all classes of seismicallydesigned facilities attests to the robustness of these facilities under severe seismic groundshaking”, and that, “the structural elements of the NPS [Nuclear Power Station] wereremarkably undamaged given the magnitude and duration of ground motion experienced
during this great earthquake.”324
The NRA draft assessment of Onagawa-2 in November 2019 garnered 979 public submissions
where, “many local citizens expressed concerns over the threat posed to the plant by
earthquakes and tsunami, but the NRA dismissed their comments.”325 Public opposition
to the operation of Onagawa, includes the major issue of emergency planning including
evacuation. The location of the power plant on the Ishinomaki Peninsula with narrow roads
and vulnerability to seismic and tsunami damage has led citizens to claim that there is noeffective evacuation plan in place. On 28 May 2021, seventeen residents of Ishinomaki City andfrom within 30 km of the Onagawa nuclear plant filed a lawsuit against Tohoku Electric at the
Sendai District Court, claiming that the evacuation plan formulated by the prefecture and city
is not effective in the event of an accident.326 According to the complaint, full evacuation would
not be possible as planned due to traffic congestion and the difficulty in securing appropriate
means of evacuation. This would lead to radiation exposure.327

Onagawa-3
As of 1 July 2021, the utility had not applied for NRA review of Onagawa-3 which began
operation in May 2001. Tokoku Electric’s President stated in October 2018 that they were inpreparation for submitting a safety review application to the NRA for the reactor, without
specifying a date.328 In November 2020, President of Tohoku Electric Kojiro Higuchi said inreference to applying to the NRA for Unit 3, that, “We are not at the stage where we can make a

323 - IAEA Department Of Nuclear Safety And Security, “Mission To Onagawa Nuclear Power Station To Examine The Performance
Of Systems, Structures And Components Following The Great East Japanese Earthquake And Tsunami”, Mission Report to theGovernment of Japan, 30 July–11 August 2012, Onagawa and Tokyo (Japan), IAEA Department Of Nuclear Energy,
see https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/iaeamissiononagawa.pdf, accessed 26 April 2019.
324 - Ibidem.
325 - The Asahi Shimbun, “Onagawa reactor passes screening under new NRA safety standards”, 26 February 2020,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13166013, accessed 21 May 2020.
326 - NHK, “女川原発2号機「避難計画 実効性ない」運転しないよう住民提訴”, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, 28 May 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210528/k10013057081000.html, accessed 29 May 2021.
327 - Kahoku Shimpo, “女川２号機再稼働 石巻市民、差し止め求め提訴へ 「避難計画に問題” [“Onagawa Unit 2 restarted:
Ishinomaki citizens filed an injunction request ‘problem with evacuation plan’”], 26 May 2021 (in Japanese),see https://kahoku.news/articles/20210526khn000016.html, accessed 29 May 2021.
328 - Yuzo Yamaguchi, “Tohoku Electric preparing to apply to NRA for Onagawa-3 safety review”, NW, 1 November 2018.

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concrete statement.”329 There are suspicions that damage sustained at Unit 3 is more significant
than reported.

Shimane-2
Chugoku Electric Power Company, which owns the Shimane-2 reactor, is moving toward someform of conclusion in its safety review by the NRA, according to reports in May 2021.330 The
utility has recently submitted amendments to the NRA that raised the maximum expected
design-base earthquake for the reactor from 600 gal331 to 820 gal and the maximum tsunami
height from 9.5 meters above sea level to 11.6 meters above sea level. In June 2021, the NRA
approved a draft report finding the reactor to meet the new regulatory standards. The
assessment will now go to public comment review.332 Local consent and Shimane prefectural
approval are still required for Shimane-2 restart, which is envisaged in spring 2022.

Reactor Closures
No additional reactors were formally declared for decommissioning in the year to 1 July 2021.
The 11 commercial Japanese reactors now confirmed to be decommissioned (not including
the Monju Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) or the ten Fukushima reactors) had a total generating
capacity of 6.4 GW, representing 14.7 percent of Japan’s operating nuclear capacity as ofMarch 2011.333 Together with the ten Fukushima units, the total rises to 21 reactors and 15.2 GW
or just under 35 percent of nuclear capacity prior to 3/11 that has now been permanently
removed from operations (see Figure 30 and Table 3).
On 26 August 2019, at a meeting between Masahiro Sakurai, the mayor of Kashiwazaki Cityand TEPCO’s President Tomoaki Kobayakawa, it was announced that the company would
consider taking steps within five years of restart of Units 6 and 7 that could result in thedecommissioning of one or more reactors at the site.334 (See TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa).
As of mid-2021, the Japanese nuclear fleet consisting of 33 units including 24 in LTO hadreached a mean age of 30.4 years, with 15 units over 31 years (see Figure 31).

329 - Nikkei, “東北電力社長「早期の再稼働へ全力」、女川原発地元同意で” [“Tohoku Electric Power President ‘We will
do our best to restart early’, with local consent”], 18 November 2020 (in Japanese), see https://www.nikkei.com/article/
DGXMZO66383140Y0A111C2L01000/, accessed 29 May 2021.
330 - The Yomiuri Shumbun, “＜島根原発２号機＞再稼働へ安全審査 大詰め” [“<Shimane Nuclear Power Station Unit 2> Safety
examination for restart”], 27 May 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/shimane/news/20210526-OYTNT50039/,
accessed 29 May 2021.
331 - A gal is a unit of acceleration and is expressed in centimeter per second squared (cm/s2).
332 - Jiji Press, “Shimane Nuclear Reactor Clears Regulatory Screenings for Restart”, 23 June 2021.
333 - Based on a total installed capacity of 43.6 GW (not including the 246 MW Monju FBR and Kashiwazaki Kariwa 2–4) which were in
LTO in March 2011.
334 - The Asahi Shimbun, “EDITORIAL: Put state in charge of TEPCO’s plan for reactor restarts”, 10 September 2019,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201909100038.html, accessed 28 May 2021.

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Table 3 - Official Reactor Closures Post-3/11 in Japan (as of 1 July 2021)
Operator

TEPCO

KEPCO

KYUSHUSHIKOKU

Capacity
MW

StartupYear

ClosureAnnouncement(a)dd/mm/yy

Official
Closure Date(b)dd/mm/yy

Last
Production

Age(c)

Fukushima Daiichi-1 (BWR)

439

1970

-

19/04/122011

40

Fukushima Daiichi-2 (BWR)

760

1973

-

19/04/122011

37

Fukushima Daiichi-3 (BWR)

760

1974

-

19/04/122011

36

Fukushima Daiichi-4 (BWR)

760

1978

-

19/04/12

2011

33

ReactorFukushima Daiichi-5 (BWR)

760

1977

19/12/13

31/01/14

2011

34

Fukushima Daiichi-6 (BWR)

1 067

1979

19/12/13

31/01/14

2011

32

Fukushima Daini-1 (BWR)

1 067

1981

31/07/19

30/09/19

2011

30

Fukushima Daini-2 (BWR)

1 067

1983

31/07/19

30/09/19

2011

28

Fukushima Daini-3 (BWR)

1 067

1984

31/07/19

30/09/19

2011

26

Fukushima Daini-4 (BWR)

1 067

1986

31/07/19

30/09/19

201124

Mihama-1 (PWR)

320

1970

17/03/15

27/04/15

201040

Mihama-2 (PWR)

470

1972

17/03/15

27/04/15

201140

Ohi-1 (PWR)

1 120

1977

22/12/17

01/03/18

2011

34

Ohi-2 (PWR)

1 120

1978

22/12/17

01/03/18

2011

33

Genkai-1 (PWR)

529

1975

18/03/15

27/04/15

2011

37

Genkai-2 (PWR)

529

1980

13/02/19

13/02/13

2011

31

Ikata-1 (PWR)

538

1977

25/03/16

10/05/16

2011

35

Ikata- 2 (PWR)

538

1981

27/03/18(d)27/03/18

2012

30
41

JAEA

Monju (FBR)

246

1995

12/2016(e)05/12/17

LTS(f) since
1995

JAPC

Tsuruga -1 (BWR)

340

1969

17/03/15

27/04/15

2011

CHUGOKU

Shimane-1 (PWR)

439

1974

18/03/15

30/04/15

2010

37

TOHOKU

Onagawa-1 (BWR)

498

1983

25/10/18

21/12/18(g)

2011

27

TOTAL: 22 Reactors /15.5 Gwe
Sources: JAIF, Japan Nuclear Safety Institute, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes
BWR: Boiling Water Reactor; PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor; FBR: Fast Breeder Reactor; LTS: Long-Term Shutdown.
JAPC: Japan Atomic Power Company; JAEA: Japan Atomic Energy Commission(a) – Unless otherwise specified, all announcement dates from Japan Nuclear Safety Institute, “Licensing status for the Japanese nuclear facilities”,
23 June 2021, see http://www.genanshin.jp/english/facility/map/, accessed 5 August 2021.
(b) – Unless otherwise specified, all closure dates from individual reactors’ page via JAIF, “NPPs in Japan”, Japan Atomic Industrial Forum,
see http://www.jaif.or.jp/en/npps-in-japan/, as of July 2021.
(c) – Note that WNISR considers the age from first grid connection to last production day.
(d) – WNN, “Shikoku decides to retire Ikata 2”, 27 April 2018, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Shikoku-decides-to-retire-Ikata-2-2703184.html,
accessed 22 July 2018.
(e) – The Mainichi, “Japan decides to scrap trouble-plagued Monju prototype reactor”, 21 December 2016.
(f) – The Monju reactor was officially in Long-Term Shutdown or LTS (IAEA-Category Long Term Shutdown) since December 1995. Officially closed in 2017.
(g) – The decision to close the reactor was announced in October 2018.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 119Figure 31 · Age Distribution of the Japanese Nuclear Fleet

Age of Japan Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

9

4
7

4

5

33 Reactors
9 Operating
24 in LTO
Mean Age: 30.4 Years

1
3

Reactor Age
11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Energy Policy Key to Nuclear Future
Japan’s latest Strategic Energy Plan (SEP), also called the Basic Energy Plan, has been undernegotiation during the past year and is to be finalized and published in summer 2021.
The revision of the SEP takes place under the Advisory Committee for Natural Resources andEnergy, under the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE), which itself is within the
Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI). The draft SEP, presented on 21 July 2021 at
METI’s strategic policy committee at its advisory committee for natural resources and energy,
proposed:ɆɆ a significant increase in the proposed share of renewable energy from the current target of
22–24 percent of electricity generation to between 36–38 percent;ɆɆ fossil fuel generation, in particular coal, to be reduced from 56 percent to 41 percent;ɆɆ nuclear generation is to remain unchanged at 20–22 percent, a target that would require in
the range of 30 reactors to be in operation by 2030.335
The draft SEP is scheduled to be approved by the Cabinet before Japan submits its Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs) ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of theParties (COP26).
The Japanese government is currently a coalition made up of the largest party, the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) and its smaller partner, the New Komeito Party. Reports in 2021
suggested that the LDP was moving towards active support for new construction andreplacement of existing nuclear power plants, which would be a change to the present SEP.
As of 1 July 2021, it was unclear whether New Komeito’s position which was for eventual
335 - METI, “エネルギー基本計画（素案）の概要” [“Outline of basic energy plan (draft)”], 21 July 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/committee/council/basic_policy_subcommittee/2021/046/046_004.pdf;
and Kyodo News, “Japan to raise FY 2030 renewables to meet carbon neutrality goal”, 21 July 2021,
see https://nordot.app/790535466852958208?c=445918389795193953, both accessed 18 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 zero nuclear power and a society not dependent on nuclear power would prevent languagechange to the SEP. New Komeito does not support new construction and is in favor of limiting
operational licenses to 40 years.
The LDP, which has rarely been out of power since the mid-1950s, has been the principal
political driver of nuclear power policy in Japan. Support for nuclear remains strong inside
the party but with notable exceptions, including in Ministerial positions. Different LDP
parliamentary associations have advocated slightly varying policies towards nuclear power.
For example, “Headquarters for Achievement of Carbon Neutrality by 2050”, under directsupervision of Prime Minister Suga, recommends that nuclear energy will be valued, while
renewable energies will be introduced to the maximum extent possible.336
On 25 May 2021, a draft Strategic Energy Plan was proposed at a joint conference of the LDP’s
Economy, Trade and Industry Division and its Research Commission on Comprehensive Energy
Strategy. Research Commission Chair Fukushiro Nukaga, a former Finance Minister, stressedthat nuclear energy must be utilized in order to realize carbon neutrality. The draft called forrenewable energy to be deployed to the maximum possible extent, and also a “correction” ofthe forty-year license limit. These would be compatible with the “3E+S” which provides theframework for current Japanese energy policy – namely: energy security, economic efficiency
and environmental protection, along with safety.337
The removal of the 40-year license limit for reactor operation, as is being suggested for the next
Strategic Plan, would be an important signal to Japan’s electric utilities of central government
policy commitment and support for a significant share of nuclear power in Japan’s future
electricity. In 2011, NISA, Japan’s then regulator, granted life extension beyond 40 years to
Fukushima Daiichi-1 only two months before the 11 March accident. Post-Fukushima revised
guidelines applied by the NRA sought to avoid this by limiting operation of nuclear reactors to
40 years, which if strictly applied would lead to the reduction and eventual decommissioningof reactors. However, the guidelines did allow, and only under exceptional circumstances, forreactors to be eligible for one license extension of up to 20 years. The restart of Mihama-3,
and planned restart of Takahama-1 & -2, all of which applied and were granted by the NRA 20year license extensions to operate beyond 40 years, highlights the likely future reality in Japan.
With sufficient financial incentive, utilities are almost certainly going to seek to extend theoperations of their existing fleet. (See Capacity Market below).
The justification for allowing license extension within the revised guidelines was in response topossible future electricity shortages.338 In 2021, this remains a concern and prospect of narrowelectricity supply margins, and even blackout, has been an important factor in the context of
this year’s drafting of the Strategic Energy Plan. With very tight margins in the past winter,
due to a combination of surge in electricity prices, multiple units offline, and extended cold

336 - Kenta Nagai, “Opinions Differ Within Japan’s Governing Coalition Concerning Nuclear Power”, JAIF, 8 June 2021,
see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/opinions-differ-within-japans-governing-coalition-concerning-nuclear-power/, accessed 8 June 2021.
337 - Kenta Nagai, “Support Grows Within LDP for Nuclear Power”, JAIF, 4 June 2021,
see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/support-grows-within-ldp-for-nuclear-power/, accessed 28 May 2021.
338 - The Asahi Shimbun, “EDITORIAL: Limiting Life of Nuclear Plants to 40 Years Should Be Continued”, 26 November 2020,see http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13964250, accessed 5 June 2021.

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weather,339 the lobby for maintaining nuclear capacity received a boost during recent months.
In May 2021, Japan’s power coordinator, the Organization for the Cross-regional Coordinationof Transmission Operators (OCCTO), issued its outlook for summer and winter 2021 noting
energy supply risks during peak demand seasons. Planned decommissioning of fossil fuel plants
is outpacing the installation of new renewable capacity. Platts reported Masashi Morimoto,director of METI’s Office for Electricity Supply Policy, as warning that, “In the next five to
10 years, we expect thermal power will continue to have an extremely severe outlook…Of course
increasing renewable energy and adding storage battery and other tools will be important,but securing the immediate stable supply is becoming a critical issue.”340 Five reactor units
are scheduled to go offline for inspection and maintenance in the year to 31 March 2022. The
prospects and risks, real or otherwise, of a shortfall in energy supply to Japanese society willremain a central theme in the coming years and will inevitably provide leverage for utilities
and policy makers to maintain nuclear capacity.
Former cabinet minister Daishiro Yamagiwa stated 25 May 2021 that construction of new andreplacement reactors would remain part of the LDP’s proposal, as they would be “necessary
to achieve carbon neutrality”.341 The LDP’s Parliamentary Association for Promotion of
Replacement Advanced Reactors also called on the government to include the constructionof new nuclear reactors in the Strategic Plan. However, as mentioned above, due to opposition
from two LDP-Ministers, language advocating the maximum utilization of nuclear energy wasremoved from the draft SEP.342

Capacity Market
The capacity market is a mechanism whereby utilities can secure financing for their existing
power plants. The case for capacity markets is premised on the basis that in a liberalized
electricity market, generators are not incentivized to maintain surplus generation. For Japan’slarge nuclear utilities, faced with growing competition from renewable energy, the creation of
the capacity market is one of multiple electricity market reforms that have been introduced
that will provide further incentive to restart reactors, and when the time comes, apply for a
20-year license extension.343 There are more than 600 power retailing companies in Japan whopurchase 85 percent of their electricity on the wholesale market. The capacity market fee is paid
to the successful utilities by the retailers via the Organization for Cross-regional Coordinationof Transmission Operators (OCCTO).

339 - Aaron Sheldrick, “Japan power prices hit record above 200 yen/kWh as cold grips, supplies tighten”, Reuters, 21 January 2021,
see https://www.reuters.com/article/japan-electricity-prices-idUKL4N2JN01J, accessed 3 June 2021.
340 - Takeo Kumagai, “Analysis: Japan’s power supply facing risks as it moves to decarbonize energy mix”, S&P Global, 21 May 2021,
see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/coal/052121-japans-power-supply-facing-risks-as-it-moves-todecarbonize-energy-mix, accessed 3 June 2021.
341 - JAIF, “Support Grows Within LDP for Nuclear Power”, 4 June 2021, op. cit.
342 - Kyodo News, “政府、原発の「最大限活用」削除”, [“Government removes ‘maximum use’ of nuclear power plants”], 3 June 2021
(in Japanese), see https://nordot.app/772993140909129728?c=113147194022725109, accessed 6 June 2021.
343 - Matsukubo Hajime, “The Capacity Market: An overview and issues”, CNIC, 5 June 2019, see https://cnic.jp/english/?p=4435,
accessed 12 May 2021.

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The first auction was held in 2020 and covered the year starting April 2024. The price was set
at ¥14,137 (US$131) per kilowatt for surplus generation capacity, the highest in the world.344
Nearly 168 GW of capacity was accepted in the auction, meaning that utilities will receive¥1.6 trillion (US$14.6 billion) in subsidies for the year April 2024 – March 2025. METI did notprovide details as to which utilities and which generation facilities will get subsidies for the2024 capacity, but they did report that of the total capacity of bidders, 42 percent were gas‑fired
facilities, 25 percent were coal-fired facilities, and only 4.2 percent were nuclear reactors. Whilethe nuclear percentage is low compared to the total within the market, it represents a highshare of the total operating nuclear fleet available for consideration in 2020.
A total of 7.1 GW of nuclear capacity was secured by Japanese utilities for the 2024–2025
capacity market, out of the total of 8.7 GW that was available as of 1 July 2020. While it is
impossible to say which reactors have secured contracts, most likely seven of the nine reactorsthat had restarted as of July 2020 had secured contracts under the capacity market. A likely
breakdown is three reactors each for Kyushu Electric and Kansai Electric plus Shikoku
Electric’s single reactor at Ikata. This share of the capacity market will yield ¥67.2 billion(US$613 million) for the three utilities in 2024/25. With the restart of additional reactors in
the coming years, it is nearly certain that the nuclear share of the capacity market will increase
with resulting significant financial benefits accruing.345
The capacity market inevitably will have a negative impact on new and renewable energy
companies, which are not entitled to apply to the capacity market if they are subject tofinancing via the Feed-In Tariff. This led Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi in 2020 torequest the reform of the system, “so that it will promote expansion of clean energy.”346
METI confirmed changes to the capacity-market system in April 2021 to be applied in time forthe next auction in September/October 2021 and covering the period April 2025–March 2026.347
The reforms include a lower fee for older coal power plants which is aimed at reducing total
coal generation capacity.

Prospects for Nuclear PowerTen years after 3/11, Japan’s nuclear utilities have failed to overcome the multiple obstacles torestarting a major part of their nuclear fleet. The public and political opposition to nuclear power
was highlighted on the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, when five former
Prime Ministers of Japan— Hosokawa Morihiro, Murayama Tomiichi, Koizumi Jun’ichiro,
Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto—publicly called for the end of nuclear power.348 No other344 - Aya Takada, “Japan’s Koizumi Eyes Reform in a $15 Billion Power Market”, Bloomberg, 6 October 2020,see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-06/japan-s-koizumi-eyes-reform-in-15-billion-power-capacity-market;
and Motoko Hasegawa, “Japan mulls 177GW for first power capacity auction”, Argus, 29 May 2020, see https://www.argusmedia.com/
en/news/2109642-japan-mulls-177gw-for-first-power-capacity-auction, both accessed May 2021.
345 - Ibidem.
346 - Ibidem.
347 - Motoko Hasegawa, “Japan revises power capacity auction rules”, Argus, 28 April 2021,
see https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2209730-japan-revises-power-capacity-auction-rules, accessed 12 May 2021.
348 - CNIC, “Five Former Prime Ministers Appeal for No Nukes”, 3 April 2021, see https://cnic.jp/english/?p=5394,
accessed 28 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 country in the world with a large nuclear industry has garnered such opposition—and yet theruling party of government, the LDP, remains wedded to nuclear power.
The number of reactors operating in Japan has barely changed during the past few years.
However, by the end of FY 2023, it is expected that there will be 12, possibly 14 reactors
operating in Japan, three of which are reactors resuming operation after being in LTO between
ten to twelve years If these reactors operate for a full year, total electricity generation could
be in the order of 82–99 TWh, based on the maximum output from these reactors in theimmediate years prior to March 2011. In reference to the annual electricity generation in 2020,
this would be 9–10 percent of total production, which is around half of the current government
target of 20–22 percent by 2030. The path to achieving this larger share is less clear.
Any assessment of the likely order of restarts must take into account multiple factors: where
they are in the NRA review process, which includes the status of seismic assessments; progress
towards completion of construction of post Fukushima safety measures; and the local andprefectural politics in terms of opposition to restart, including status of lawsuits. All these
uncertainties mean there a several scenarios possible over the coming years.
If TEPCO can overcome the opposition in Niigata, the next reactors to restart could be
Kashiwazaki Kariwa-7 followed by Unit 6 in 2022–2023. Thereafter, there is a possibility ofrestart of Shimane-2, Onagawa-2 and even Tokai-2 by 2023–2024. Delays on these are alsoa distinct possibility, if not a certainty. Approval for the operation of the new Shimane-3
ABWR looks possible with a start of operations by 2025. This would bring the total number ofreactors operating in Japan to 18 by mid-decade. Based on the same estimates, total electricity
generation with one full year of operation could be as much as 127 TWh by 2026/27, equal to
14 percent of Japan’s electricity. On balance, this is one plausible scenario, if rather favorable tothe utilities.
This WNISR analysis is more favorable to the outlook for nuclear than for example Fitch
Solutions which in February 2020 noted, that as a result of public opposition and technicalchallenges, “We expect these factors will continue to challenge Japan’s push for nuclear
restarts, prompting our more bearish outlook on nuclear power generation which we now
expect will reach approximately 85.4TWh by 2029, accounting for 8.4% of the total powermix.”349
There are other reactors under NRA review, including two units at Chubu Electric’s Hamaoka
site; Hokkaido Electric’s three-unit Tomari plant; and Tohoku Electric’s Higashidori. There iseven a limited prospect of completion of construction of J-Power’s Ohma ABWR and TEPCO’s
Higashidori ABWR. If all of these were to overcome the major obstacles to their operation,
which is unlikely, then additional electricity generation by 2030 could in theory reach 59 TWh,for a total of 186 TWh, which would represent 20 percent of Japan’s electricity demand (onbasis of the 2020 numbers). This would meet the current SEP share for nuclear generated
electricity produced by operating 26 nuclear reactors at an output based on their historicalmaximum.

349 - Danielle Isaac, “Japan to miss nuclear targets amidst industry headwinds”, Asian Power, 24 February 2020,see https://asian-power.com/regulation/news/japan-miss-nuclear-targets-amidst-industry-headwinds, accessed 18 May 2020.

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The barriers to achieving this scale of nuclear generation by 2030, even with all the financial
incentives, market distortion, and central government support, look insurmountable.
Therefore, there is no prospect that the SEP lays out the nuclear future for Japan during thenext critical decade. Without a more ambitious expansion of renewable energy during thecoming years, the shortfall in electricity supply due to the failure to meet nuclear targets, could
be filled by fossil fuel. The 2021-SEP thus takes on even greater significance, if Japan is to begin
to have any prospects of rapidly reducing its emissions by 45 percent by 2030, securing thenecessary energy transition and to meet its 2050 goals of decarbonization and zero emissions.

SOUTH KOREA FOCUS
On the Korean Peninsula, South Korea (Republic of Korea) operates 23 reactors, plus one
reactor in Long-Term Outage (LTO), and has four reactors under construction. One of two
reactors which had been in LTO, Hanbit-3, resumed operation in November 2020. Bothreactors had been shut for more than two and three years respectively, due to voids in concrete
containment walls and corrosion on containment liner plates.
In December 2020, the Government of President Moon Jae-in announced its 9th Basic Plan
for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand which aims to significantly increase renewableenergy, while reducing installed nuclear capacity and coal-fired plants in the period up to 2034.
However, the possibility that current Korean energy policy will be overturned looms with the
Presidential election scheduled for 2022.
South Korea’s nuclear fleet, owned by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Company (KHNP), is
located at the Hanbit, Hanul, Kori and Wolsong sites. Nuclear power provided 152.6 TWh in
2020, almost 10 percent more than the 138.8 TWh in 2019.

Construction
All four reactors under construction in South Korea are APR-1400 design. Construction of
Shin-Hanul-1 and -2 has been nearly completed, but startup dates have been pushed back. Fuelloading for Unit 1 began on 14 July 2021 while Unit 2 is planned to be fueled one year later,on 1 July 2022.350 There is no date for grid connection, but KHNP has scheduled commercial
operation for Unit 1 on 31 March 2022, and exactly one year later for Unit 2.
KHNP had also planned to construct two additional reactors at the site, Shin-Hanul-3 and -4. But
they were ordered by the Moon government in 2017 to suspend their plans. The government’s
2017-Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand cancelled Shin-Hanul-3 and -4,
as well as four other reactors Cheonji-1 and -2 (in Yeongdeok) and either Cheonji-3 and -4 or
Daejin-1 and -2 (in Samcheok). While there is no immediate prospect of construction actually
beginning under the current administration, in February 2021, the Ministry of Trade, Industry
and Energy (MOTIE) extended the construction license permits for Shin-Hanul-3 and -4, which

350 - KHNP, “Nuclear Power Construction - Shin-Hanul #1,2”, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Updated 30 April 2021,
see https://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/content/547/main.do?mnCd=EN03020303, accessed 4 June 2021.

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were due to expire, until end of 2023.351 The suspension of construction could be terminated if
the opposition party wins the upcoming 2022-Presidential elections.
The two other reactors, Shin Kori-5 and Shin Kori-6, have been under construction sinceApril 2017 and September 2018 and were planned to be completed in March 2023 and June 2024
respectively.352 However, in March 2021, KHNP applied for an extension of the construction
license, with a completion schedule for Shin Kori-5 now extended one additional year until
31 March 2024, and for Shin Kori-6, nine months later to 31 March 2025.353

Typhoon Shutdowns
As a result of two typhoon systems hitting Korea in September 2020, a total of 5.3 GW ofnuclear capacity was shut down. Six KHNP reactors suffered loss of off-site power caused by
Typhoon Maysak on 3 September 2020 and Typhoon Haishen on 7 September 2020. Kori-3
and -4, and Shin Kori-1 and -2 had been operating on 3 September 2020 when they were trippedand emergency diesel generators began operation. Kori-1 and -2 had been offline undergoingrefueling and maintenance at the time. On 7 September 2021, Wolsong-1 and -2 were tripped
while the supply of off-site power was sustained and the reactors started to operate at
60 percent of reactor power, and then were shut down.
The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry
and Energy (MOTIE) investigation into the event concluded that wind-carried salt had
deposited on the transformer instruments, which measure electrical quantities generated
from the reactors, which led to fire sparks or flashovers. It led to the opening of the breaker inthe switchyard, which was the beginning of the event. KHNP said the typhoon was stronger
than expected. However, Han Byeong-seop, director of the Korean Institute for Nuclear
Safety (KINS) said that even if salinity was the cause, the real problem might be “poor-quality
parts and slapdash construction,” The Hankyoreh newspaper reported.354 Countermeasures
to be applied include replacing insulators with salt-resistant materials and minimizing parts
exposed to the outside environment, including main transformers, standby transformers, andinstrument transformers of the reactors by sealing the facilities.
As a consequence of the typhoons, combined with reactors offline due to refueling andmaintenance during the off-peak autumn season, a total of 12 reactors with a combined
capacity of 10.9 GW were offline in September 2020, or 47 percent of South Korea’s overall

351 - NucNet, “Ministry Extends Construction Licence For Delayed Shin-Hanul Units”, 23 February 2021,
see https://www.nucnet.org/news/ministry-extends-construction-licence-for-delayed-shin-hanul-units-2-2-2021, accessed 9 June 2021.
352 - S&P Global, “S Korea’s 9 nuclear plants restarting Sep-Oct to pressure LNG demand”, 2 September 2020,see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/090220-s-koreas-9-nuclear-plants-restarting-sepoct-to-pressure-lng-demand, accessed 9 June 2021.
353 - Chosun Biz , “‘ 탈원전 기조 유지’ 문승욱...후쿠시마 사고로 원전 불안감 커져”[“Maintaining the post-nuclear power cycle… increased
insecurity at the nuclear power plant due to the Fukushima accident - Seung-wook Moon”], 4 May 2021 (in Korean),see https://biz.chosun.com/policy/policy_sub/2021/05/04/ET6KS2F65JFEDEUGPER4U2M7CU/, accessed 9 June 2021.
354 - The Hankyoreh, “Six reactors shut down due to salinity during recent typhoons”, 11 September 2020,see https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/961833.html, accessed 28 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 126capacity of 23 GW across 24 nuclear reactors, KHNP reported on 28 September 2020.355 (Seealso Nuclear Power and Climate Change Resilience).

Permanent Closure
The NSSC formally passed the bill for the permanent closure of Wolsong-1 on 24 December 2019.
The decision has met protests from the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) andthe labor union of KHNP, which have launched legal action against NSSC and its members.
The controversy over the closure has escalated during the past year (see below).
Table 4 – Status of Nuclear Reactor Fleet in South Korea (with scheduled closure dates)
Reactor

Type

MW

Grid
connection

Expected Closure

Kori-2

PWR

640

1983

2023

Kori-3

PWR

1 011

1985

2024

Kori-4

PWR

1 012

1985

2025

Hanbit-1

PWR

995

1986

2025

Hanbit-2

PWR

988

1986

2026

Wolsong-2

PHWR

606

1997

2026

Wolsong-3

PHWR

630

1998

2027

Hanul-1

PWR

966

1988

2027

Hanul-2

PWR

967

1989

2028

Wolsong-4

PHWR

609

1999

2029

Hanbit-3

PWR

986

1994

Hanbit-4

PWR

970

1995

Hanbit-5

PWR

992

2001

Hanbit-6

PWR

993

2002

Hanul-3

PWR

997

1998

Hanul-4

PWR

999

1998

Hanul-5

PWR

998

2003

Hanul-6

PWR

997

2005

Shin-Kori-1

PWR

996

2010

Shin-Kori-2

PWR

996

2012

Shin-Kori-3

PWR

1 416

2016

Shin-Kori-4

PWR

1 418

2019

Shin-Wolsong-1

PWR

997

2012

Shin-Wolsong-2

PWR

993

2015
Sources: MOTIE, 2017

Following the closure of Wolsong-1, seven additional reactors are planned to be closed justprior to reaching their 40-year operating lifetime with a total 6.6 GW of capacity. The reactors
are Kori-2 to be closed in 2023, Kori-3 in 2024, Kori-4 and Hanbit-1 in 2025, and Hanbit-2 in
2026, Hanul-1 in 2027 and Hanul-2 in 2028. Three reactors are scheduled to be closed as they355 - Atsuko Kawasaki and Charles Lee, “Feature: South Korea bucks trend by turning to LSFO after typhoon-led nuclear shutdowns”,
S&P Global, 28 September 2020, see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/092820-featuresouth-korea-bucks-trend-by-turning-to-lsfo-after-typhoon-led-nuclear-shutdowns, accessed 8 July 2012.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 reach their 30-year lifetime: Wolsong-2 in 2026, Wolsong-3 in 2027 and Wolsong-4 in 2029
(see Table 4).356

Containment Liner Plate Corrosion
In recent years, there have been extended outages of South Korea’s nuclear reactors. The
principal reason has been that out of the 24 reactors South Korea operated (prior to startupof Shin-Kori-4 and closure of Wolsong-1 in 2019) 21 were found to have corrosion in theContainment Liner Plates (CLP) or voids in the concrete structure.357 Reactor containmentbuildings in South Korea are insulated with a CLP of six millimeters in diameter, and thenconcrete 1.2 meters in diameter thick. As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S. NRC)
noted in 1997: “Any corrosion (metal thinning) could change the failure threshold of the liner
plate under a challenging environmental or accident condition. Thinning has the effect ofchanging the geometry of the liner plate, creating different transitions and strain concentration
conditions. This may reduce the design margin of safety against postulated accident andenvironmental loads.”358
Under nuclear regulation, evidence of structural deterioration that could affect the structural
integrity or leak-tightness of metal and concrete containments must be corrected before thecontainment can be returned to service. Corrosion of a liner plate can occur at a numberof places where the metal is exposed to moisture, or where moisture can condense (behind
insulation) or accumulate. The corrosion repair has consisted of removal of the damaged liner
section and embedded foreign material (e.g. wood), grouting the resulting void, and replacing
the liner plate section.359 Root cause analysis of the causes of CLP corrosion reported by
Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) were predominately due to exposure to moisture(environment), as well as the presence of foreign debris.360 KHNP is required to submit its
structural integrity assessment of the concrete voids found in the containment building of thereactors to the NSSC, which will then require a technical review by KINS, a technical support
organization, and independent verification by the Korea Concrete Institute.361 For details on
KHNP reactors impacted by CLP see WNISR2019 and WNISR2020.
One of the reactors impacted with CLP remaining in LTO is Hanbit-4 though it is scheduled
to resume operation in August 2021, while Hanbit-3, also with CLP problems, returned tooperation at the end of 2020. On 7 July 2019, Korean broadcaster MBC reported that KHNP
had confirmed 94 holes between the steel plate and concrete inside the reactor building of356 - MOTIE, “The 8th Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand (2017-2031)”, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy,
2017, see https://www.kpx.or.kr/www/downloadBbsFile.do?atchmnflNo=30051, accessed 9 June 2021.
357 - Charles Lee, “South Korea completing safety checks on all reactor containment structures”, Nucleonics Week, 9 May 2019.
358 - Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, “Information Notice No. 97-10: Liner Plate Corrosion in Concrete Containments”,
U.S.NRC, 13 March 1997, see https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1997/in97010.html,
accessed 29 June 2021.
359 - Jason P. Petti, Dan Naus et al., “Nuclear Containment Steel Liner Corrosion Workshop: Final Summary and Recommendation
Report”, Sandia National Laboratories, operated for the U.S. Department of Energy, Report SAND2010-8718, July 2011,see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1121/ML112150012.pdf, accessed 29 June 2021.
360 - Yonglak Paek, Sangyun Kim, Euisik Yoon and Hun Cha, “Introduction of Containment Liner Plate (CLP) Corrosion”, Korea
Institute of Nuclear Safety, Transactions of the “Korean Nuclear Society Spring Meeting”, 17–18 May 2018,see https://www.kns.org/files/pre_paper/39/18S-189%EB%B0%B1%EC%9A%A9%EB%9D%BD.pdf, accessed 29 June 2021.
361 - NSSC, “Regarding Concrete Voids of Containment Buildings of Hanbit Unit 3 and 4, the NSSC Will Verify Structural Integrity
Objectively and Transparently”, 12 March 2020.

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Hanbit-3 and 96 holes in Hanbit-4. KHNP, according to MBC, explained that the holes foundare up to 90 cm in size, but there would be “no problem with the structural stability of thecontainment.”362
Hanbit-3 entered LTO status in July 2020. However, on 12 November 2020 and following
repairs to the CLP damage, the NSSC approved criticality of Hanbit-3, which had been shut
down on 11 May 2018.363 There were further delays to the restart plans for Hanbit-4, following
shutdown in 2017 and originally scheduled for October 2020.364 As of 1 July 2021, Hanbit-4
remains in LTO status but is due to restart operations on 17 August 2021.365

Wolsong Debacle and Uncertainty Over Energy Policy
Highlighting the political and economic pressure against the Moon administration over its
energy policy is the on-going controversy over the closure of Wolsung-1. The Pressurized
Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) was closed on 24 December 2019. The closure of the Wolsong-1
reactor has been used by those opposed to President Moon’s energy policy and is now set tocontinue in the runup to the 2022 Presidential election. The leading opposition candidate for
President, Yoon Seok-youl, is the former Prosecutor General who ordered the investigation
into the Wolsong case, and later resigned.366
The Wolsong-1 reactor was a CANDU-6 PHWR design, which was connected to the grid on
31 December 1982, and had originally been licensed for 30 years until 2012, but KHNP secured alicense extension of 10 years to November 2022. KHNP spent 700 billion won (U$616 million)
during the period 2009–2011 on a first-of-its-kind complete retubing. All 380 zirconium
calandria-tubes, which contain the reactor fuel channels and which allow heavy water coolant
to circulate, were removed and replaced.367 KHNP stated that the work should enable the679‑MWe reactor to operate for a further 25 years.368 The reactor closed in November 2012,
when its operating license expired, and restarted June 2015, after the NSSC voted in favor of
lifetime extension.369 President Moon was elected in 2017 on a manifesto that included early362 - MBC News, “한빛 3·4호기 격납건물서 구멍 190곳 발견” [“190 hatch holes in the containment building of Hanvit 3. 4”], 7 July 2019
(in Korean), see https://n.news.naver.com/article/214/0000961974, accessed 2019.
363 - NSSC, “NSSC Approved Criticality of Hanbit Unit 3 During Periodic Inspection and to Conduct Power Ascension and Other
Remaining Tests”, 12 November 2020.
364 - S&P Global, “S Korea’s 9 nuclear plants restarting Sep-Oct to pressure LNG demand”, 2 September 2020,see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/090220-s-koreas-9-nuclear-plants-restarting-sepoct-to-pressure-lng-demand, accessed 29 June 2020.
365 - Argus, “Nuclear disruption to support South Korea coal burn”, 22 March 2021,
see https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2198274-nuclear-disruption-to-support-south-korea-coal-burn, accessed 29 June 2021.
366 - Ser Myo-ja“Yoon incinerates Moon’s anti-nuclear energy policy”, The Korea JoongAng Daily, 6 July 2021,
see https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/07/06/national/politics/Yoon-Seokyoul-nuclear-phaseoutWolsong1/20210706183300295.html, accessed 6 July 2021.
367 - AECL, “AECL achieves milestone in Korean CANDU Refurbishment Project”, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited,
1 December 2010, see https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/aecl-achieves-milestone-in-korean-candu-refurbishmentproject-546964022.html, accessed 5 June 2021.
368 - WNN, “Korean Candu restarts after refurbishment”, 29 July 2011, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Korean_Candu_
restarts_after_refurbishment_2907114.html, accessed 5 June 2021.
369 - NSSC, “The Commissioners Decided to Approve Continued Operation of Wolsong Unit 1 in the 35th Meeting”, Press Release,
27 February 2015, see http://www.nssc.go.kr/nssc/english/release/list.jsp?mode=view&article_no=17977&pager.offset=10&board_
no=501, accessed 10 July 2017.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 closure of Wolsong-1. In June 2018, the commercial operation of Wolsong-1 was “terminated”,370
and the NSSC on 24 December 2019 formally passed the bill for its closure.371
The opposition to the closure decision (and Moon’s overall nuclear and energy policy)
was given a boost in October 2020 when the Korean Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI),
concluded that, “The economic effectiveness of continuing operation of the reactor was
unreasonably devalued,” as result of a “faulty assessment that unfairly underestimated theeconomic advantage of keeping it operating”.372 The investigation was launched at the requestof the Korean National Assembly in September 2019. The BAI avoided ruling on the validity ofthe state-run corporation’s decision. The BAI found that an accounting firm had submitted areport that undervalued the economic advantage of continuing the operation of the reactor to
KHNP in June 2018.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), as part of the Moon administration’senergy policy, had already decided to close the reactor prior to the report being completed.
Paek Woon-kyu, President Moon Jae-in’s first MOTIE minister decided on 4 April 2018 thatthe reactor would be closed earlier than the scheduled closure in 2022. KHNP, according to
BAI, was prevented from considering any other options and this influenced the company’s
economic efficiency assessment.
The BAI report did make clear that the audit looked only at the economic factors, not wider
safety issues, stating that, “Safety and region-based elements were excluded from the scope of
the audit,” and that,
The decision to close the reactor was a result of a range of factors such as safety and regional
acceptance, in addition to economic viability. As the inspection was not about determining
the validity of the policy decision, it is not appropriate to view the results of this inspection as
a comprehensive assessment on the closure of Wolsong-1 reactor. 373

The BAI did conclude that Minister Paek deserved to be punished for having violated the State
Public Officials Act, but no reprimand was recommended at that time because he had retired
from the government in September 2018. The BAI recommended the government issue a strong
warning to the president of KHNP and punish public servants who obstructed its audit.
Defending the decision to close the reactor, Rep. Youn Kun-young of the ruling Democratic
Party warned that, “Shutting down the Wolsong-1 reactor was Moon’s presidential campaign
pledge, and it was a policy endorsed by the people through the election. Auditing or investigating
the policy to shut down the reactor is a direct challenge to democracy”.374

370 - KHNP, “Nuclear Power Operation - Plant Status”, 31 December 2018, see http://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/content/529/main.
do?mnCd=EN03020101, accessed 29 June 2021.
371 - NSSC, “The 112th Meeting of the Commission Was Held”, 24 December 2019.
372 - Ser Myo-ja, “BAI slams Wolsong I nuclear plant shutdown process”, The Korea JoongAng Daily, 20 October 2020,see https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2020/10/20/national/politics/Board-of-Audit-and-Inspection-BAIWolsong/20201020191600377.html, accessed 5 June 2021.
373 - Asia Today, “BAI: Wolsong-1 reactor’s economic viability unreasonably undervalued”, 21 October 2020,see http://en.asiatoday.co.kr/view.php?key=20201020002137344, accessed 8 July 2021.
374 - The Korea JoongAng Daily, “BAI head refutes ruling party, stands by Wolsong probe”, 23 February 2021,
see https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/02/23/national/politics/BAI-Choe-Jaehyeong-Wolsong/20210223172300387.html,
accessed 29 June 2021.

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The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) demanded a criminal investigation into thegovernment’s decision to close the reactor and public servants’ attempts to hinder the audit. In
December 2020, Daejeon District Prosecutors Office sought arrest warrants for three officials
from MOTIE suspected of deleting documents related to the closure of Wolsong-1 charging
them with disturbing the state auditors’ examination and alleging that they had destroyed
444 materials and files about the decision.
On 1 July 2021, the Prosecutors’ Office charged former Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy
Paik Un-gyu and former presidential secretary for industrial policy Chae Hee-bong with abuseof power and obstructing the business of KHNP. Chung Jae-hoon, president of the KHNP, wasindicted on charges of breach of trust and obstruction of business.375

Moon Administration’s Energy Policy Under Threat
Despite the mounting pressure on the administration of President Moon from the main
opposition party, industry and much of the media, the government confirmed a more ambitious
renewables energy policy, the “9th Long-Term Basic Blueprint for Power Supply over 2020–2034”, which was announced on 20 December 2020.
Details of the plan, as reported in WNISR2020, were confirmed in the final version. The
Government plan is to reduce dependence on nuclear and fossil fuel from the 46.3 percent in2020 to 24.8 percent by 2034. Renewable energy is to be expanded from 20 GW in 2020 to77.8 GW, supplying 40 precent of the country’s electricity by 2034, compared with the current
15.1 percent.376
The number of reactor units would peak at 26 in 2024, and by 2034 there would be 17 reactors
operating with a total of 19.4 GW installed nuclear capacity generating 10.4 percent ofSouth Korea’s electricity.377 This compares with 24 reactors (including the one in LTO) in
2020 and 23.3 GW and 19.2 percent of the nation’s electricity. A total of 5.6 GW of new nuclear
capacity—Shin-Hanul-1 and -2, and Shin-Kori-5 and -6 are now scheduled to begin commercial
operation between 2022–2024.
The uncertainty going forward was highlighted by the announcement of the lead opposition
Presidential candidate, Yoon Seok-youl, who stated on 29 June 2021 that, “The nuclear phaseout policy was a poorly and hastily crafted one, and it must be revised…the Wolsong nuclear
reactor probe is directly related to my resignation (as prosecutor in March 2021)…As soon as Iordered the Daejeon District Prosecutors’ Office to conduct raids to investigate the suspicion
that the reactor was shut down earlier than scheduled due to an assessment that deliberately
underestimated the economic advantages of keeping it going, a disciplinary process against me
started. There were also enormous pressures on how we handled the case.”378
375 - The Korea JoongAng Daily, “Former energy minister charged with abuse of power”, 1 July 2021, see https://koreajoongangdaily.
joins.com/2021/07/01/national/socialAffairs/Paik-Ungyu-Chae-Heebong-Wolsong1/20210701154800369.html, accessed 6 July 2021.
376 - The Korea Herald, “Korea sets 42% renewable energy target by 2034”, 16 December 2020, see https://ieefa.org/korea-sets-42renewable-energy-target-by-2034/, accessed 29 June 2021.
377 - Kyeongho Lee, “South Korea’s 9th Basic Plan for electricity – a step closer to carbon neutrality?”, Woods Mackenzie,
8 March 2021, see https://www.woodmac.com/our-expertise/focus/Power--Renewables/south-koreas-9th-basic-plan-for-electricity--astep-closer-to-carbon-neutrality/, accessed 29 June 2021.
378 - The Korea JoongGang Daily, “Yoon incinerates Moon’s anti-nuclear energy policy”, 6 July 2021, op. cit.

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It appears clear that the future of South Korean energy policy for the coming years, including
the planned closure of 10 reactors, will be determined by the outcome of the 2022 Presidential
elections.

TAIWAN FOCUS
Taiwan has three operating reactors at Kuosheng (Guosheng) and Maanshan, all owned by
the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), the state-owned utility monopoly. This is one
less reactor than previously due to closure of the Kuosheng Unit 1 (Guosheng) BWR on
1 July 2021.379 The Kuosheng Unit 1 closure is the third Taiwanese reactor to be closed under
President Tsai Ing‑wen government’s nuclear phase out plan and another milestone in theisland’s energy transition including the end of nuclear generation by 2025.
In 2020, nuclear generation was almost stable at 30.3 TWh, compared to 31.1 TWh in 2019, equal
to 12.7 percent of Taiwan’s electricity compared to 13.4 percent in 2019. Nuclear generation
reached its maximum share of 41 percent in 1988.
As a consequence of the January 2020 re-election of President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) the nuclear phase out and energy transition enacted in the first term,
remains official policy.380 The rival Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) continues to strongly
oppose President Tsai’s energy policy, calling for a life extension of existing reactors and theconstruction of new plants.381

Reactor Closures
As reported in WNISR2020, Taipower announced the closure of Chinshan Unit 1 on
5 December 2018, while Chinshan-2, which remained shut down from June 2017, was officiallyclosed on 15 July 2019, when its 40-year operating license expired.
On 1 July 2021, Taipower announced that due to lack of spent fuel storage capacity, Kuosheng
Unit 1 had been permanently shut down, which was six months earlier than planned.382 The
closure of Kuosheng Unit 1 was originally scheduled for 27 December 2021 when its operating
license expired. Nuclear fuel was loaded into the reactor during the refueling and maintenanceoutage in 2020, but in February 2021 Taipower reduced the reactor power level to 80 percent toallow it to extend operations until June.383

379 - Taipower, “核 1號機燃料池滿今提前停機” [“The fuel pool of Nuclear No. 2 Unit 1 was shut down ahead of schedule
today”], 1 July 2021 (in Chinese), see https://www.taipower.com.tw/tc/news_info.aspx?id=4741&chk=75ddf691-44f7-406a-922cebf676c2fbd8&mid=17, accessed 5 July 2021.
380 - Yang Chun-hui, Shih Hsiao-kuang and Lin Liang-sheng, “2020 Elections: Tsai wins by a landslide”, Taipei Times, 12 January 2020,see https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/01/12/2003729107, accessed 7 July 2021.
381 - Pan Han-shen, “Han, nuclear fans lie about wind”, Taipei Times, 5 January 2020, see https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/
editorials/archives/2020/01/05/2003728728, accessed 7 July 2021; and Nucleonics Week, “Taiwan election returns anti-nuclear president
to office”, 6 February 2020.
382 - Taipower, “核 1號機燃料池滿今提前停機”, 1 July 2021, op. cit.
383 - WNN, “Early shutdown for Taiwanese reactor”, 1 July 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Early-shutdown-forTaiwanese-reactor, accessed 7 July 2021.

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The reactor, which is located on the northern coast of Taiwan, approximately 22 km northeastof Taipei City, was a 985MW BWR/6 unit with Mark III containment supplied by General
Electric, and was connected to the grid on 21 May 1981. In its last full year of operation in 2020,
it generated 7.4 TWh of electricity.384 Local opposition in Taiwan prevented the constructionof additional spent fuel dry storage capacity and is one principal reason for the early closureof Kuosheng Unit 1. Taipower undertook the installation of high density spent fuel storage
racks (HDFSRs) in the early 1990’s at Kuosheng and installed even higher density in 2005.385
The Kuosheng Unit 2 is planned for closure on 15 March 2023. Maanshan’s PWR Unit 1 andUnit 2 are scheduled for closure on 26 July 2024 and 17 May 2025, respectively.

Referendum on Lungmen
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic a decision was taken to postpone the planned referendum
that was scheduled on 28 August 2021 to 18 December 2021. The referendum is intended
to attempt to overturn the current nuclear phase out policy, and will ask voters to approve
restarting the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant 4 project.386 In reality there is no prospect for a
restart of the Lungmen reactors.
According to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), as of the end of March 2014, Lungmen-1
was 97.7 percent complete,387 while Lungmen-2 was 91 percent complete. The plant was, as of2014, estimated to have cost US$9–9.9 billion.388 After multiple delays, rising costs, and largescale public and political opposition, including through local referendums, on 28 April 2014,
the then Premier Jiang Yi-huah announced that Lungmen-1 will be mothballed after thecompletion of safety checks, while work on Unit 2 at the site was to stop. The Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) government was elected with a pledge to halt construction of theLungmen reactors, and with a nuclear phase-out planned for 2025, there is little prospect thatthey will ever operate. A formal decision on terminating the project would potentially force
Taipower to file for bankruptcy as the listing of Lungmen as an investment asset would put thecompany in the red.389
Any resumption of Lungmen construction would require Taiwan’s legislature and AEC
approval, which, given the current government, is not going to happen. Taipower explained in
February 2019 that it would not be able to replace major components installed nearly 20 years
ago, including instrumentation and control as well as renegotiation with the main supplier384 - IAEA-PRIS, “Kuosheng-1 – Reactor Details”, Updated 20 August 2021, see https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/
ReactorDetails.aspx?current=556, accessed 21 August 2021.
385 - NEI, “Keeping Kuosheng operating”, 15 March 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurekeeping-kuoshengoperating-6084804/, accessed 7 July 2021.
386 - Matthew Strong, “Taiwan postpones 4 referendums from August to December due to COVID”, Taiwan News, 2 July 2021,
see https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4238648, accessed 9 September 2021.
387 - Planning Department, “Status and Challenges of Nuclear Power in Taiwan”, AEC, April 2014,see http://www.aec.gov.tw/english/whatsnew/files/20140506-5.pdf, accessed 7 July 2021.
388 - WNN, “Political discord places Lungmen on hold”, 28 April 2014, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Political-discordplaces-Lungmen-on-hold-2804144.html, accessed 7 July 2021.
389 - Lee I-chia, “Nuclear Power Debate: Scrapping plant would ruin Taipower: Duh”, Taipei Times, 29 April 2014,see http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/04/29/2003589160, accessed 7 July 2021.

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General Electric (GE).390 Taipower stated that it could take 6–7 years to complete construction
if all of these obstacles were overcome. WNISR took the units off the listing in 2014, where theyremain as of 1 July 2021. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) although listing thereactors as under construction as of June 2019,391 as of 1 July 2021 they were no longer listed.392

Energy policy
Historical public opposition to nuclear power in Taiwan dramatically escalated during and in
the months following the start of the Fukushima Daiichi accident and has been a principal
driver of the nation’s ambitious plans for a renewable energy transition. The “New Energy Policy
Vision”, announced by the administration in summer 2016, aims at establishing “a low carbon,
sustainable, stable, high-quality and economically efficient energy system” through an energy
transition and energy industry reform.393 On 12 January 2017, the Electricity Act Amendment
completed and passed its third reading in the legislature, setting in place the mechanisms
for Taiwan’s energy transition, including nuclear phase-out.394 The law also gives priority to
distributed renewable energy generation, by which its generators will be given preferential
rates, and small generators will be exempt from having to prepare operating reserves.
The closure of Kuosheng-1 prior to summer peak electricity demand has led some to question
the merits of the government’s current energy policy 395; however, a Taipower official statedthat the loss of the reactor will not impact power supply margins as the company had“anticipated the shutdown for several months and Taipower has controlled for this”, throughthe commissioning of a new 500-MW combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and 500 MW of new
solar PV installations. “We have confidence that we can provide full power supply this summer
with no problems”.396
President Tsai in October 2020 called for Taiwan to become a leading center of green energy
in the Asia-Pacific region.397 Between 2021 and 2025, Taiwan aims to add 5.7 GW of offshore
wind power to the grid, and a total of 14.2 GW by 2025. In 2020, the government’s position wasthat an additional 10 GW of offshore wind will be added to the grid between 2026–2035.398 In
390 - NEI, “Taipower rules out operation of Lungmen”, 6 February 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newstaipower-rulesout-operation-of-lungmen-6970272, accessed 7 July 2021.
391 - IAEA-PRIS, “Taiwan, China”, as of 10 June 2019, see https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.
aspx?current=TW, accessed 11 June 2019.
392 - IAEA-PRIS, “Taiwan, China”, 1 July 2021, op. cit.
393 - MOEA, “Taiwan’s New Energy Policy”, 6 April 2017, Ministry of Economic Affairs,
see https://www.moea.gov.tw/Mns/ ietc_e/content/Content. aspx?menu_id=21511, accessed 7 July 2021.
394 - Bureau of Energy, “The Three-Stage Reading Process for Electricity Act Amendment Completed Moving Towards the 2025
Target of Nuclear-Free Homeland”, Ministry of Economic Affairs, 1 March 2017, see https://eng.wra.gov.tw/7618/7662/7717/30138/,
accessed 7 July 2021.
395 - Darrell Proctor, “Taiwan Shuts Another Reactor as Part of Nuclear-Free Goal”, POWER Magazine, 7 July 2021,
see https://www.powermag.com/taiwan-shuts-another-reactor-as-part-of-nuclear-free-goal/, accessed 7 July 2021.
396 - Nikkei Asia, “Taiwan nuclear plant closure tests Tsai’s energy transition”, 5 July 2021, see https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/
Energy/Taiwan-nuclear-plant-closure-tests-Tsai-s-energy-transition, accessed 7 July 2021.
397 - Energy Taiwan, “Energy Taiwan Establishing the Trifecta of PV Solar, Wind Power and Smart Energy Storage”, 16 October 2020,see https://www.energytaiwan.com.tw/en/news/0D605CE74CB29C4E/info.html?lt=data&cr=7&cid=news;
and Energy Trend, “2020 Energy Taiwan Commenced as Taiwan Become Hot Spot for Global Green Energy Investment”,
15 October 2020, see https://www.energytrend.com/news/20201015-19621.html, both accessed 7 July 2021.
398 - U.S. Department of Commerce, “Taiwan Renewable Energy Market”, 5 March 2021,
see https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/taiwan-renewable-energy-market, accessed 7 July 2021.

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May 2021, this was increased to 15 GW.399 The reform of the electricity market is continuingwith the second stage during 2019–2025 to include grid unbundling, the restructuring of
Taipower into a holding company with two entities: a power generation corporation and atransmission and distribution corporation; and the separation of the accounting system forthese planned within 2 years and complete separation within six to nine years. 400

UNITED KINGDOM
FOCUS
In 2020, the United Kingdom operated 13 reactors, with two units, Dungeness B-1 and B-2, inthe LTO category (one less than in WNISR2020) as they had not operated since September andAugust 2018 respectively. In June 2021, it was announced that those two reactors would not berestarted. Nuclear plants provided 16 percent of power, down from a maximum of 26.9 percent
in 1997. Generation from nuclear was 50.3 TWh in 2020, a decrease of 11 percent compared to
2019. This was due to a series of statutory and unplanned outages at the U.K.’s nuclear plants
over the year. 401 The average age of the U.K. fleet now stands at 37.4 years (see Figure 33).
Figure 32 · U.K. Reactor Startups and Closures

UK Reactors Startups and Closuresin Units, from 1956 to 1 July 2021

Magnox

FBR

AGR

SGHWR

PWR

OperatingStartups

Closed6
4
2
0 1956-2-40
Closures

Sizewell B
1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

Wylfa-1
2018
Dungeness
2011 B-1 & B-2

OldburyA-2

Oldbury A-1
Wylfa-2© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR with EDF-Energy and IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Final consumption of electricity was 284.4 TWh in 2020, a decrease of 4.7 percent compared
to 2019. This was largely driven by a reduction in non-domestic electricity consumption due
399 - Wind Power Monthly, “Taiwan ups offshore wind goal with plans to auction 15GW”, 11 May 2021,
see https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1715534/taiwan-ups-offshore-wind-goal-plans-auction-15gw, accessed 7 July 2021.
400 - Chung-Han Yang and Chengkai Wang, “The Energy Regulation and Markets Review: Taiwan”, The Law Reviews, 16 June 2021,
see https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/the-energy-regulation-and-markets-review/taiwan#footnote-055, accessed 7 July 2021.
401 - BEIS, “Energy Trends – UK, October to December 2020 and 2020”, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,
March 2021, see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972779/Energy_
Trends_March_2021.pdf, accessed 11 April 2021.

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to restrictions introduced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Total electricity generated in2020 was 312.8 TWh, 3.7 percent less than in 2019 (324.8 TWh), but continues a trend that has
occurred since 2010.
Generation from renewable sources has been increasing year-on-year and in 2020 exceeded
the generation from fossil fuels the first time. Renewable sources generated 134.3 TWh in 2020,
an increase of 11 percent over the previous year.
A total of 32 power reactors have been permanently closed, all 26 Magnox reactors, two units at
Dounreay, both Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR), a prototype Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR)
at Windscale and a prototype Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor (SGHWR) at Winfrith.
Six of the U.K.’s seven second-generation nuclear stations, each with two AGRs, are operating
past the end of their original 25-year design lives. These are now expected to close between
2022 and 2030, while the country’s only Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), at Sizewell B—thelast of the U.K. units to start up, in 1995 (see Figure 32)—is scheduled to operate until at least
2035. 402 However, with Heysham A and Hartlepool expected to close by 2024, EDF Energy willbe left with just three operating nuclear stations (see Table 5).
Table 5 – Expected Closure Dates of U.K. Nuclear Reactor Fleet – As of 1 July 2021
Type/Model

Net Capacity
(MW)

Grid
Connection

Age

Dungeness B-1

AGR

545

03/04/1983

38.2

Closed. Last power generation
on 28 September 2018

Dungeness B-2

AGR

545

29/12/1985

35.4

Closed. Last power generation
on 27 August 2018

Hartlepool A-1

AGR

590

01/08/1983

37.8

Hartlepool A-2

AGR

595

31/10/1984

36.6

March
2024

Heysham A-1

AGR

485

09/07/1983

37.9

2024

Heysham A-2

AGR

575

11/10/1984

36.6

2024

Heysham B-1

AGR

620

12/07/1988

32.9

2030

Heysham B-2

AGR

620

11/11/1988

32.6

2030

Hinkley Point B-1

AGR

485

30/10/1976

44.6

Hinkley Point B-2

AGR

480

05/02/1976

45.3

July
2022

Hunterston B-1

AGR

490

06/02/1976

45.3

Hunterston B-2

AGR

495

31/03/1977

44.2

January2022

Sizewell-B

PWR

1 198

14/02/1995

26.3

2035

Torness-1

AGR

595

25/05/1988

33.0

2030

Torness-2

AGR

605

03/02/1989

32.3

2030

Reactor

Expected
ClosureStatus / Comment

Sources: EDF Energy, 2020–2021

EDF Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of French state-controlled utility EDF, is the majority
owner of the company Lake Acquisitions that owns these reactors. Centrica has a minority
share (20 percent) in Lake Acquisitions. However, Centrica was trying to sell its stake since2013, and the 2019 annual report says, “we re-affirmed our strategic direction back towards
402 - EDF Energy, “Nuclear Lifetime Management”, EDF, Updated, see https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-lifetimemanagement, accessed 11 April 2021.

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the customer and our desire to exit nuclear”. 403 However, in its 2020 annual report they havestated “We have postponed the intended disposal of our nuclear generation assets until there isgreater operational certainty”. Centrica also reported, an adjusted operating loss of £17 million(US$23 million) in 2020, compared to a profit of £19 million (US$27 million) in 2019, with lower
generation volumes reflecting the extended outages at a number of power stations. 404

Serious Ageing Issues
Managing reactors as they age is a constant problem for any technology design and the AGRs
are no exception. In recent years problems with the core’s graphite moderator bricks haveraised concerns. Keyway Root Cracks (KWRCs) were found at the Hunterston B reactors.
This can lead to the degradation of the keying system, a vital component which houses thefuel, the control rods and the coolant (CO2). Their cracking or distortion could impact on theinsertion of the control rods or the flow of the coolant. There are also issues of erosion of thegraphite, and a number of the AGRs are close to the erosion limits that the Office for Nuclear
Regulation (ONR) has set. ONR has said these issues are likely to be the lifetime-limiting factor
for the AGRs, as it is not possible to replace the graphite bricks. 405
In March 2018, during a scheduled outage, EDF discovered a higher number of KWRCs in theolder of the two reactors at Hunterston than was predicted by its computer models in 2016
when the reactor underwent its statutory 10-year Periodic Safety Review. Since then, there has
been a series of announcements indicating that the cracking problem is more extensive and theremedial measures more complicated than envisaged. In July 2019, the ONR’s Annual Reportstated that Hunterston B were in an “enhanced level of regulatory attention” rather thanroutine. This was because assessment of the cracks required “substantial additional effort.”
Part of the reason for the delay is that ONR revealed in a technical report that 58 fragments had
broken from the graphite bricks and there was “significant uncertainty”, over the risk of theseblocking the fuel channels. The ONR would require more robust arguments before agreeing to
the restart of the reactors. 406
Reactor 3 at Hunterston B (Hunterston B-1) was eventually restarted in August 2020, leaving
the LTO status, and Reactor 4 (Hunterston B-2) in September. However, EDF Energy has
confirmed that both units will be permanently closed before 7 January 2022, 407 while the tworeactors at Hinkley Point B, will be permanently closed before 15 July 2022. 408

403 - Centrica, “Annual Report and Accounts 2019”, March 2020, see https://www.centrica.com/investors/annual-report-2019/,
accessed 11 April 2021.
404 - Centrica, “Annual Report and Accounts 2020”, March 2021, see https://www.centrica.com/media/4860/centrica-ar2020.pdf,
accessed 11 April 2021.
405 - ONR, “Operating power stations: Graphite core of AGRs”, Office for Nuclear Regulation, 5 March 2021,
see http://www.onr.org.uk/civil-nuclear-reactors/graphite-core-ageing.htm, accessed 11 April 2021.
406 - Rob Edwards, “Safety fears as Hunterston’s cracked nuclear reactors start to crumble”, The Ferret, 17 October 2019,see https://theferret.scot/hunterston-graphite-debris-nuclear/, accessed 11 April 2021.
407 - Paul Forrest, “Letter to the Hunterston Site Stakeholder Group - 27 August”, Station Direction, Hunterston B, EDF Energy,
27 August 2020, see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/letter-hunterston-site-stakeholder-group-27-august,accessed 11 April 2021.
408 - EDF Energy, “UK’s most productive nuclear power station to move into decommissioning by July 2022”, 19 November 2020,see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/uks-most-productive-nuclear-power-station-move-decommissioningjuly-2022, accessed 20 November 2020.

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Concerns have been raised that lifetime-limiting cracking will be found at the other AGRs andin May 2020, it was revealed that the ONR in its 10-year Periodic Safety Review had estimatedthat “The predicted timescales for onset of keyway root cracking has changed from 2028 tomid-2022.”409 Consequently, the future of many of the AGRs is being questioned by EDF’s
shareholders, who see ongoing outages and higher maintenance costs now outweighing the
economic benefits of a possible additional couple of years of operation. 410
Age-related problems, in this case corrosion rather than problems with graphite, have beenfound at similar reactors at Dungeness-B, with Unit 2 closed for what was supposed to
be a 12-week outage in August 2018 and then Unit 1 for “common statutory outage work”,
in September 2018, with both initially expected to restart in April 2019. 411 However, on
7 June 2021, EDF Energy, to the surprise of many, announced that it would not seek to restartits Dungeness B nuclear power plant. EDF had said that “the station has a number of unique,significant and ongoing technical challenges that continue to make the future both difficult
and uncertain”. EDF further stated that “the current scheduled decommissioning dateis 2028. Given the unique technical challenges noted above, a range of scenarios are being
actively explored. These include moving directly into the defueling phase later this year.”412 It
was revealed that changes to the condition of the plant’s boilers, as well as serious issues oncomponents that cover fuel assemblies were behind the decision to close the units. 413
Figure 33 · Age Distribution of U.K. Nuclear Fleet

Age of UK Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age
21–30 Years

8

1

13 Reactors
Mean Age37.4 Years

4

31–40 Years
41–50 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

409 - Rob Edwards, “Torness nuclear reactors predicted to start cracking in 2022”, The Ferret, 6 May 2020,see https://theferret.scot/torness-nuclear-reactors-cracking-2022/, accessed 11 April 2021.
410 - Phil Chaffee, “Restive Investors Challenge EDF on UK’s Troubled AGRs”, NIW, 28 February 2020.
411 - EDF Energy, “Dungeness B - Site Stakeholder Group Report June 2020”, June 2020, see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/
news-releases/dungeness-b-site-stakeholder-group-report-june-2020, accessed 11 April 2020.
412 - EDF Energy, “Update on Dungeness B power station”, 8 April 2021, see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/
update-dungeness-b-power-station, accessed 11 April 2021.
413 - NIW, “Dungeness B Moves Into Early Retirement”, 11 June 2021, see https://www.energyintel.com/0000017b-a7dd-de4c-a17be7df78500000.

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Pathways to Net ZeroIn June 2019, the Parliament set in law a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by
2050 and as part of this process six select committees jointly agreed to establish a citizens’
assembly on climate change and how the Net Zero Target could be met. Special attention was
to be given to the findings of the Committee as “it is unique: a body whose composition mirrorsthat of the U.K. population.”
The conclusions of the Committee on nuclear power were:ɆɆ Assembly members saw three main disadvantages to nuclear: its cost, safety, and issues
around waste storage and decommissioning.
ɆɆ Support for nuclear power was second lowest to the use of fossil fuels with Carbon Captureand Storage (CCS), with 34 percent of the assembly agreeing or strongly agreeing that itshould be part of how the U.K. generates electricity, compared to 78 percent for onshorewind, 95 percent for offshore wind and 81 percent for solar. 414
The Climate Change Committee, an independent body established to advise the Government
on meeting its climate commitments has produced a report on how the U.K. can meet its Net
Zero commitments. Three out of five of the Committee’s energy scenarios featured just 5 GW
of nuclear capacity, equal to completing Hinkley Point C (HPC) and life-extending Sizewell B
for the period 2035–2055. The remaining two scenarios featured 10 GW of nuclear capacity.
The Committee concluded on nuclear power:415
Renewables are cheaper than alternative forms of power generation in the U.K. and can be
deployed at scale to meet increased electricity demand in 2050 - we therefore consider deep
decarbonisation of electricity to be a Core measure.
Reducing emissions towards net-zero will require continued deployment of renewables andpossibly nuclear power and other low-carbon sources such as carbon capture and storage
and hydrogen, along with avoiding emissions by improving energy efficiency or reducing
demand. [Emphasis added.]

The committee is clearly recognizing the economic and deployment advantages of renewables
over nuclear power as the country moves toward a zero emissions economy.
In November 2020, the U.K. Government published a Ten-Point Plan for a Green Industrial
Revolution, which included a specific point on, “Delivering New and Advanced Nuclear
Power”. 416 This put forward milestones for the sector, including:ɆɆ 2021: Launch of Phase 2 of U.K. Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design development.
ɆɆ Mid 2020s: HPC comes online.
ɆɆ Early 2030s: First SMRs and Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) demonstrator deployed in
the U.K.
414 - Climate Assembly UK, “The Path to Net Zero”, House of Commons, 2020, see https://www.climateassembly.uk/report/read/finalreport-exec-summary.pdf.
415 - Committee on Climate Change, “Net Zero – Technical report”, 2 May 2019, see https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/net-zerotechnical-report/, accessed 12 April 2021.
416 - BEIS, “The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution”, November 2020, see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/
government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936567/10_POINT_PLAN_BOOKLET.pdf.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 To support the development of the next generation of reactors the Government proposed
to provide up to £385 million (US$533 million) in an Advanced Nuclear Fund for the next
generation of nuclear technology, aiming, by the early 2030s, to develop an SMR and to build
an AMR demonstrator. The Government is clearly backing SMRs and are extremely optimistic
about a potential delivery timetable, which is a high-risk strategy given the industry’s trackrecord of delivering established designs, never mind first-of-a-kind prototypes.
Then in December 2020, the Government published a long-awaited Energy White Paper. In
this they stated that their aim was to “bring at least one largescale nuclear project to the pointof Final Investment Decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to clear value for money andall relevant approvals”. 417 In an accompanying press statement the Government said it would
begin negotiations with EDF on Sizewell C. 418 However, the language was prudent and requires
a “value-for-money” hurdle to be passed, which given the current economics of nuclear vs.
renewables is likely to be difficult. U.K. minister Gerry Grimstone told the Financial Times “Ifyou read the energy white paper before Christmas it’s by no means certain that this country isgoing to be building large nuclear power stations”. 419

Nuclear Newbuild
The development of new nuclear reactors in the U.K. has been slow since the current
development cycle was “officially launched” 15 years ago, when then Prime Minister Tony Blairstated that nuclear issues were “back on the agenda with a vengeance”. 420 In July 2011, theGovernment released the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Nuclear Power Generation. 421
The eight “potentially suitable” sites considered in the document for deployment “before theend of 2025” are exclusively current or past nuclear power plant sites in England or Wales,
except for one new potential site, Moorside, adjacent to the fuel-chain facilities at Sellafield.
Northern Ireland and Scotland are not included. The Scottish Government is opposed to newbuild and has reiterated their “continued opposition to new nuclear stations, under current
technologies. The economics of these stations are prohibitive, especially given the falling costsof renewable and storage technologies”. 422

417 - BEIS, “Energy White Paper – Powering our Net Zero Future”, December 2020, see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.
uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/945899/201216_BEIS_EWP_Command_Paper_Accessible.pdf,
accessed 11 April 2021.
418 - BEIS, “Government sets out plans for clean energy system and green jobs boom to build back greener”, 14 December 2020,see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plans-for-clean-energy-system-and-green-jobs-boom-to-build-backgreener, accessed 14 December 2020.
419 - Jim Pickard and Daniel Thomas, “UK woos sovereign wealth funds over green investments”, Financial Times, 28 April 2021,
see https://www.ft.com/content/f2352470-2bef-4b15-bae8-fb9e002212d0, accessed 5 May 2021.
420 - BBC, “Blair backs nuclear power plans”, 16 May 2006, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4987196.stm,
accessed 11 April 2021.
421 - Department of Energy and Climate Change, “National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation”, July 2011.
422 - Scottish Government, “The future of energy in Scotland: Scottish energy strategy”, December 2017,see https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-energy-strategy-future-energy-scotland-9781788515276/, accessed 11 April 2021.

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Hinkley Point C
EDF Energy was given planning permission to build two reactors at Hinkley Point in April 2013.
In October 2015, EDF and the U.K. Government423 announced updates to the October 2013provisional agreement of commercial terms of the deal for the £16 billion (US$19.5 billion)
overnight cost of construction of Hinkley Point C (HPC). The estimated cost of construction
has since risen at the following times:
ɆɆ In 2017, it stood at £201519.6 billion (US$201525.3 billion), up from the £201518 billion(US$201523.2 billion)—a figure which included the financial costs. EDF said at the time thatthe £1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) increase results mainly “from a better understanding of thedesign adapted to the requirements of the British regulators, the volume and sequencing ofwork on site and the gradual implementation of supplier contracts.”424
ɆɆ In November 2019, EDF announced a further increase in costs due to “challenging groundconditions”, “revised action plan targets” and “extra costs needed to implement thecompleted functional design”, with the new completion cost (in 2015 values) now being
estimated between £21.5 billion (US$26.6 billion) and £22.5 billion (US$27.9 billion).
Furthermore, it was stated that the risk of delay had increased and that such a delay would
increase costs by £0.7 billion (US$0.9 billion) over and above these estimates, so the upper
end of the range is now £23.2 billion (US$28.8 billion). 425 EDF stated that “management of
the project remains mobilised to begin generating power from Unit 1 at the end of 2025”,
which is not a clear statement of confidence in the current schedule. 426
ɆɆ In January 2021, EDF announced that Unit 1 is expected to generate power in June 2026,
compared to end-2025 as announced in 2016. The project completion costs are now
estimated in the range of £2015 22–23 billion (US$31–32.5 billion), a rise of £0.5 billion(US$0.7 billion). 427
The critical points of the HPC deal were a Contract for Difference (CfD), effectively a guaranteed
real electricity price for 35 years, which, depending on the number of units ultimately built,
would be £89.5–92.5/MWh, in 2012 values (US$2020110–115/MWh), with annual increases linked
to the Retail Price Index. In early 2020, EDF broke down the £92.50/MWh (US$2020115) strikeprice saying that £19.5 (US$202024.1) would go toward operating and maintenance costs, andonly £11 (US$202013.6) to standard construction costs, excluding financing. The remaining £62(US$202076.8) covers risk, with £26 (US$202032.2) for financing costs “for typical regulated asset
without construction risk” and £36 (US$202044.6) to cover first-of-a-kind construction risk. 428
The validity of and rationale for releasing these figures remain unclear. On the one hand, it
could be designed to say that the cost of construction has been inflated in the U.K. due to the423 - Department of Energy & Climate Change, “Hinkley Point C to power six million UK homes”, UK Government, 21 October 2015,see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hinkley-point-c-to-power-six-million-uk-homes, accessed 11 April 2021.
424 - EDF, “Clarifications on Hinkley Point C project”, 3 July 2017, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/clarifications-on-hinkley-point-c-project, accessed 11 April 2021.
425 - EDF, “Update on Hinkley Point C project”, 25 September 2019, see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/
update-on-hinkley-point-c-project, accessed 11 April 2021.
426 - Ibidem.
427 - EDF, “Hinkley Point C project update”, 27 January 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/
all-press-releases/hinkley-point-c-project-update-1, accessed 27 January 2021.
428 - Phil Chaffee, “United Kingdom: Industry Pushes for Government Action”, NIW, 6 March 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 particular conditions in the U.K. leading to an extremely high cost of risk. However, on theother hand, it does highlight that building reactors is financially extremely risky.
The cost of this support scheme has rocketed, and the U.K. National Audit Office (NAO)
suggested that the additional ‘top-up’ payments—the difference between the wholesale
price, as of the beginning of 2020 at £36/MWh (US$50/MWh) and the agreed fixed price (orStrike Price), required through the CfD—have increased from £6.1 billion (US$20139.9 billion)in October 2013 to £29.7 billion (US$201641.2 billion) in March 2016. This was due to fallingwholesale electricity prices. This is the discounted 429 estimate, and the undiscounted estimate
would be closer to £50 billion (US$202062 billion) The NAO also stated that “the [Government]
Department’s deal for HPC has locked consumers into a risky and expensive project withuncertain strategic and economic benefits.”430
There was an expectation that construction would be primarily funded by debt (borrowing)backed by U.K. sovereign loan guarantees, expected to be about £17 billion (US$26.9 billion).
EDF announced in November 2015 its intention to sell non-core assets worth up to €10 billion(US$11.4 billion), including a stake in Lake Acquisitions, to help finance HPC and other capitalintensive projects. 431
The expected composition of the consortium owning the plant changed from October 2013 to
October 2015 with the effective bankruptcy and dismantling of AREVA making their planned
contribution of 10 percent impossible. The Chinese stake, through China General Nuclear
Power Corporation (CGN), fell to 33.5 percent from 40 percent and the other investors (up to
15 percent) had not materialized, leaving EDF with 66.5 percent rather than 45 percent it had
hoped for in 2013. The rising construction cost and its increased share has impacted upon theamount EDF has to pay. Since 2013, the cost of EDF’s expected share of the project has gone up
by about 150 percent432 and significantly contributed to its large, €42.3 billion (US$51.6 billion)
debt load. The HPC cost overruns were part of Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade EDF’s
credit rating in June 2020 (see France Focus).
The administration of Prime Minister Theresa May finally approved and signed binding
contracts for the HPC project in September 2016, with the Government retaining a ‘special
share’, that would give it a veto right over changes to ownership, including preventing
EDF from selling down to less than 50 percent, if national security concerns arose. 433 The
U.S. Government continues to have security concerns and in October 2018 Assistant Secretaryof State, Christopher Ashley Ford, even warned the U.K. explicitly against partnering with

429 - Discounting reduces the nominal value of costs and estimates the further in the future they occur.
430 - NAO, “Hinkley Point C”, 12 June 2017, see https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Point-C.pdf,
accessed 7 May 2018.
431 - Michael Stothard, “EDF looks to sell €10bn of assets to boost balance sheet”, Financial Times, 18 October 2015,see https://www.ft.com/content/fcd6a462-7578-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7, accessed 21 May 2020.
432 - Steve Thomas and Alison Downes, “Financing the Hinkley Point C”, Public Services International Research Unit, University ofGreenwich, Commissioned by the Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell, January 2020, see https://www.nuclearconsult.
com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HPC-finance-Steve-Thomas.pdf, accessed 11 April 2021.
433 - Rowena Mason and Simon Goodley, “Hinkley Point C nuclear power station gets government green light”, The Guardian,
15 September 2016, see http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/15/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-gets-go-ahead,
accessed 11 April 2021.

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CGN, saying that Washington had evidence that the business was engaged in taking civilian
technology and converting it to military uses. 434

A New Funding Model for Nuclear?
Recognizing that the Contract for Difference (CfD) for Hinkley Point C (HPC) was leading
to higher power prices than available alternatives, such as offshore wind, whose 2019 tender
led to prices of £201239.65/MWh (US$50/MWh), in July 2019, the Government announced
a consultation for the introduction of a new funding model to facilitate the construction of
new nuclear via a Regulated Asset Base (RAB). In such a case the project developer could
charge consumers upfront for the construction, which would be broken down into different
phases during the build process. EDF has claimed that all households would have to pay only
£6 (US$7.5) per year additionally for them to build the proposed reactors at Sizewell C. 435 In the
U.S., this model has led to at least nine tariff increases for consumers for the construction of
the two V.C. Summer reactors in South Carolina, started in 2012 and abandoned in 2017 after
the expenditure of over US$10 billion. The financing scheme had been abandoned by mostof the U.S. states in the 1970s and led to the cancellation of more reactor orders than were
eventually carried through.
Charging upfront reduces the overall construction costs as it avoids the need to include
interest during the construction phase, thus cutting the amount of compounded debt to beserviced and paid off during the life of the asset, which could be key for nuclear projects asfinancing represents a significant share of the overall project costs. Furthermore, by breaking
the construction into different phases, it is expected that this would increase certainty andtherefore further reduce the cost of finance. EDF argues that the aim would be to reduce
the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) from the 9.2 percent on HPC to around
5.5‑6 percent. 436 However, as a paper by the National Infrastructure Commission concludes:
it would be inappropriate to compare the price achieved under a CfD model, into which thedeveloper has priced the risks of cost and time overruns, with a price achieved under a RAB
model made on the basis that the project will be built on time and on budget. 437

Furthermore, the consumer protection association, Citizens Advice stated in their response to
the consultation that:
While there are credible reasons to believe that a RAB model would reduce the cost of capital
associated with bringing forward new nuclear power stations, these are outweighed by

434 - Jonathan Ford, “UK’s reliance on China’s nuclear tech poses test for policymakers”, Financial Times, 14 February 2019,see https://www.ft.com/content/7734e3be-2f6f-11e9-8744-e7016697f225, accessed 21 May 2020.
435 - David Sheppard, “EDF forecasts nuclear plant project would add £6 a year to UK bills”, Financial Times, 11 June 2019,see https://www.ft.com/content/897d548a-8c34-11e9-a24d-b42f641eca37, accessed 23 May 2020.
436 - Jonathan Ford, “EDF seeks to charge customers upfront for UK nuclear plants”, Financial Times, 22 November 2018,see https://www.ft.com/content/f9a96304-e980-11e8-885c-e64da4c0f981, accessed 23 May 2020.
437 - National Infrastructure Commission, “Estimating comparable costs of a nuclear regulated asset base versus a contract fordifference financing model”, October 2019, see https://www.nic.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/NIC_RAB_Paper_October_2019-3rdLayout-003.pdf, accessed 30 May 2020.

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the risk of highly material increases in the volume of capital that consumers will need tofinance. 438

A key selling point for the Government was a hope that funding would not have to comefrom the Treasury—and therefore remain off the Government’s balance sheet. However,Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng reportedly told an event at the Conservative Party conference
that the Treasury now believes that government support under a nuclear RAB would be scoredas balance sheet debt. 439
Consequently, it was reported that the Government was, at the end of 2020, considering theoption to taking a greater direct stake in nuclear new build and the Prime Minister’s spokesmansaid, “The government is looking at options to invest in Sizewell”. 440
In December the Government published its response to the consultation and concluded that,“following the consultation, Government will continue to explore a range of financing options
with developers, including RAB”. 441 Which hasn’t, at least publicly, clarified the Government’s
position.

Other U.K. New-Build Projects
Sizewell C
EDF and CGN are also preparing to launch the development of a follow-on to
Hinkley Point C (HPC), the Sizewell C project. Chinese investment would be limited to
20 percent, leaving EDF with 80 percent. The 80/20 split covers only the stage up to final
investment decision. There is no agreement to invest beyond that stage. Given the apparent
problems EDF is having financing HPC, this makes the Sizewell project even more difficult.
Despite this, a public engagement process has been ongoing, and EDF was expected tosubmit a planning application, a so called “development consent order” in February 2020,
but concerns by statutory agencies about the readiness of the application followed by the pandemic
and the Government’s control measures led to it being delayed until May 2020. 442 On 24 June 2020,
the Planning Inspectorate accepted the application and consequently the next stage of the planning
process could begin. 443 However, in October 2020, EDF announced it intended to make changes to the438 - Citizens Advice, “Response to BEIS consultation on whether it should move to a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model to financenew nuclear power stations”, Press Release, 11 October 2019, see https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/cymraeg/amdanom-ni/ourwork/policy/policy-research-topics/energy-policy-research-and-consultation-responses/energy-consultation-responses/responseto-beis-consultation-on-whether-it-should-move-to-a-regulated-asset-base-rab-model-to-finance-new-nuclear-power-stations/,
accessed 23 May 2021.
439 - Phil Chaffee, “United Kingdom: Policy Void Prompts Developer Scramble”, NIW, 30 October 2020.
440 - Elizabeth Piper, “UK looking at funding options for EDF’s Sizewell C nuclear plant”, Reuters, 17 September 2020,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-nuclear-sizewell-idUKKBN26824E, accessed 12 April 2021.
441 - BEIS, “RAB Model for Nuclear – Government Response to the consultation on a RAB model for new nuclear projects”,
December 2020, see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/943762/
Nuclear_RAB_Consultation_Government_Response-.pdf, accessed 12 April 2021.
442 - EDF Energy, “Sizewell C submits planning application”, Press Release, 27 May 2020,see https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/sizewell-c-dco, accessed 11 April 2021.
443 - The Planning Inspectorate, “Application by NNB Nuclear Generation (SZC) Limited for an Order Granting Development
Consent for The Sizewell C Project—Notification of decision to accept an application for Examination for an Order Granting
Development Consent”, Email to Richard Bull, EDF Energy, 2020, see https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/
ipc/uploads/projects/EN010012/EN010012-002268-A05%20Notification%20of%20decision%20to%20accept%20application_.pdf,
accessed 26 June 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 application, leading to further delay. 444 The final decision on whether to grant a development consent
order to build Sizewell-C is planned to be taken by the Government by 14 April 2022.
EDF is hoping that it can sequence the construction of Sizewell C with the completion of HPC, so
that workers can move from one project to another. But given the earliest conceivable preliminary
construction works start date of Sizewell C in 2022, this seems impossible. EDF is optimistic thatit can reduce construction costs, with their current estimate put at £18 billion (US$22 billion). 445
However, they are also hoping that the financing costs of Sizewell-C can be reduced by shifting fromthe CfD mechanism to the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model. EDF have suggested that with a better
financing model and no “first-of-a-kind costs”, they could “peel away” the strike-price by £36/MWh(US$44.5/MWh), 446 as a result of EDF’s “base case” for Sizewell C’s cost being £20 billion(US$24.8 billion), with 60 percent financed by loans. 447 In its planning documents, EDF confirmed
construction costs of £20 billion (US$24.8 billion), despite previously suggesting that costs would
be 20 percent lower than HPC thus limited to £18 billion (US$22.3 billion). 448 However, without
the development of a new financing model and confidence that the problems that have plagued theconstruction of all EPRs around the world, it is unlikely, especially in the current economic climate,that Sizewell C will proceed.
In March 2021 EDF’s financial report for 2020 said a Final Investment Decision (FID) was likely to bemade in mid-2022, but used cautious language on the whole about the project, stating “EDF aims toensure that risk sharing with the U.K. government in the as-yet un-validated regulatory and financing
scheme will make it possible to find third party investors during the FID and avoid consolidating the
project (including the economic debt calculation adopted by rating agencies). To date, it is not clear
whether the Group will reach this target.” It went on to say
EDF’s ability to make a FID on Sizewell C and to participate in the financing of this project
beyond the development phase could depend on the operational control of the HPC Point C
project, on the existence of an appropriate regulatory and financing framework, and on thesufficient availability of investors and funders interested in the project. To date, none of these
conditions are met. Failure to obtain the appropriate financing framework and appropriate
regulatory approval could lead the Group not to make an investment decision or to make adecision in less than optimal conditions. 449

Bradwell
EDF is allowing China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) to use the Bradwell site it
had bought as back-up, if either the Hinkley Point or Sizewell sites proved not to be viable. CGN
plans to build with its own technology, the Hualong One (or HPR-1000) at this site, with EDF
444 - Richard Cornwell, “EDF formally submits proposed changes to Sizewell C plans”, East Anglian Daily Times, 13 January 2021,
see https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-plans-changes-submitted-6900486, accessed 4 May 2021.
445 - NEI, “Plans for Sizewell C submitted to UK Planning Inspectorate”, 28 May 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsplans-for-sizewell-c-submitted-to-uk-planning-inspectorate-7943163, accessed 11 April 2021.
446 - Phil Chaffee, “United Kingdom: Industry Pushes for Government Action”, NIW, 2020, op. cit.
447 - Roger Murray, “Hinkley Point Cost Overrun- Bad News for Sizewell C?”, NIW, 27 September 2019.
448 - Donato Paolo Mancini and Nathalie Thomas, “Cost of new Sizewell C nuclear plant put at £20bn”, Financial Times, 26 June 2020,see https://www.ft.com/content/77c209f7-6d18-4609-ac3c-77d1b5b82b34, accessed 26 June 2020.
449 - EDF, “2020 Annual Results - Appendices”, March 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/espacesdedies/espace-finance-en/financial-information/publications/financial-results/2020-annual-results/pdf/annual-results-2020appendices-20210304.pdf, accessed 4 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 taking a 33.5 percent stake, 450 up to the point of getting the Generic Design Assessment (GDA),
going forward the plant will need a new consortium. In January 2017, the U.K. Government
requested that the regulator begin the GDA of the HPR-1000 reactor, 451 and by February 2020
the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) had completed Step 3 of the GDA, with the final
Step expected to be completed by the end of 2021, with a closure stage potentially taking
another year. 452 The key moment in the GDA, when specific issues are identified, is Step 4. In
December 2020, the U.K.’s gas and electricity markets regulator, Ofgem, granted an electricity
generating license to the Bradwell Power Generation Company Ltd. 453
In August 2019, the U.S. blacklisted CGN for allegedly diverting the country’s nuclear
technology for “military uses”. The Federal Register added the state-owned Chinese firm
and three subsidiaries to its “Entity List”. This makes it virtually impossible for Americancompanies to supply CGN without specific licenses. 454 This and the increasing breakdown in
the relationship between China, the U.S. and to some extent Europe, may well impact on thedevelopment of Bradwell as will the current economic climate and the likelihood of a global
recession. In particular for the U.K., there is ongoing and growing concern over the situation in
Hong Kong. Consequently, it has been suggested that as nuclear power plants “are part of the
U.K.’s strategic national infrastructure, and China is no longer a friend to be trusted with suchlevers of power” it is impossible to envisage the government approving the Bradwell station. 455
Furthermore, there is increased attention on the Bradwell project with the cancellation ofnegotiations about future nuclear projects in the Czech Republic and Romania due to security
concerns with China.
Despite this, the project still has inertia and remains within the licensing process. From a
Chinese perspective having the Hualong reactor design approved in the U.K. would be valuable
as it seeks to sell its technology in other parts of the world. Therefore, it is likely that theprocess will continue, despite the U.K. Government making it clear that it sees no more than
one nuclear project being approved in the lifetime of the current Parliament, ending 2024.

Moorside
In June 2014, NuGen finalized a new ownership structure with Toshiba-Westinghouse(60 percent) and Engie – then GDF Suez – (40 percent), as Iberdrola sold its shares toToshiba-Westinghouse. The group planned to build three Toshiba-Westinghouse-designed

450 - EDF Energy, “Agreements in place for construction of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station”, Press Release, 21 October 2015,see https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c/news-views/agreements-in-place,accessed 11 April 2021.
451 - ONR, “Assessing new nuclear reactor designs—Generic Design Assessment Periodic Report: November 2016 – January 2017”,
March 2017, see http://www.onr.org.uk/new-reactors/reports/gda-quarterly-report-nov16-jan17.pdf, accessed 11 April 2021.
452 - ONR, “Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of new reactors - Timeline”, 5 March 2021,
see http://www.onr.org.uk/new-reactors/timeline.htm, accessed 11 April 2021.
453 - NEI, “UK’s Bradwell B granted electricity generating licence”, 21 December 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsuks-bradwell-b-granted-electricity-generating-licence-8420726/, accessed 12 April 2021.
454 - Felix Todd, “China nuclear firm blacklisted by US for ‘unauthorised’ use of tech”, NS Energy, 15 August 2019,see https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/china-nuclear-us-tech/, accessed 5 July 2021.
455 - Nick Butler, “How growing conflict with China could impact UK nuclear power”, Prospect Magazine, 10 April 2021,
see https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/nuclear-investment-power-uk-china-government-energy, accessed 12 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 AP1000 reactors at the Moorside site, with units proposed to begin operating in 2024. 456
The AP1000 design completed the GDA process. However, Westinghouse, after its financial
collapse, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in March 2017. The perilous
state of the project also led to Engie selling its remaining 40 percent to Toshiba-Westinghousefor US$138 million, who were contractually obliged to buy at the pre-determined price. In late
April 2017, Toshiba started mothballing the project. 457
Toshiba was initially in with both South Korea’s KEPCO, a nationally owned utility and reactor
vendor, and CGN of China, as potential buyers of NuGen. However, in November 2018, Toshibaannounced that it was winding down NuGen, without finding a buyer. This could have opened
up the opportunities for others to buy the Moorside site and build their own reactors—but thishas not yet occurred. In the meantime, the Moorside site has reverted to the U.K.’s Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

Wylfa and Oldbury
The other company that was involved in the proposed nuclear new-build is Horizon Nuclear
Power, which was bought by the Japanese company Hitachi-GE from German utilities E.ON
and Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE) for an estimated price of £700 million(US$1.2 billion) in 2012. The company submitted its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR)
design for technical review and it completed the GDA, whilst at the time making it clear thatits continuation in the project would depend on the outcome of the negotiations with theGovernment. 458
Hitachi was looking for partners in their project, hoping to reduce their stake to 50 percent and,
if no other investors could be found, the company would have to withdraw. An internal review
had found that the construction cost was likely to reach US$27.5 billion, considered too big arisk for the company on its own. In January 2019, Hitachi announced that it was suspending
the project and that this decision was taken “from the standpoint of economic rationality”;
in doing so the company accepted a ¥300 billion (US$20192.75 billion) impairment. 459 Horizon
CEO Duncan Hawthorne wrote in a 27 January 2021 letter to the U.K. Planning Inspectorate
withdrawing Horizon’s application for a Wylfa Newydd development consent order. 460 The site
will revert to the NDA.

456 - NucNet, “Toshiba Finalises Controlling Stake In UK Nuclear Company NuGen”, 30 June 2014,see https://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2014/06/30/toshiba-finalises-controlling-stake-in-uk-nuclear-company-nugen,accessed 12 April 2021.
457 - John Collingridge, “Toshiba mothballs Cumbrian nuclear power project”, Sunday Times, 30 April 2017.
458 - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “Hitachi reluctant about UK nuclear reactor plan”, The Telegraph, 14 April 2013,see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9993564/Hitachi-reluctant-about-UK-nuclear-reactor-plan.html,
accessed 23 May 2020.
459 - Dennis Engbarth, “Hitachi Cites ‘Economic Rationality’ for Wylfa Decision”, NIW, 1 January 2019.
460 - Phil Chaffee, “Covid-19’s Impact on Hinkley Point C”, NIW, 27 January 2021.

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UNITED STATES FOCUS
Overview
With 93 commercial reactors operating as of 1 July 2021, the U.S. continues to possess by far
the largest nuclear fleet in the world. Two reactors were closed in the year since WNISR2020.
Duane Arnold-1 in the state of Iowa was closed on 10 August 2020, following significant
storm damage, and four months earlier than scheduled. 461 The Indian Point-3 reactor closed
on 30 April 2021, bringing to an end nuclear generation at the site, which is located on the
Hudson River, 48 km from Manhattan, New York. 462 Unit 2 at the site was disconnected fromthe grid on 20 April 2020. 463
Construction continued on the one new nuclear plant in the U.S., the twin AP-1000s at Plant
Vogtle Units 3 and 4, in the state of Georgia. As in previous years, evidence has continued
to emerge of the enormous scale of the problems with the Vogtle project, owned by Georgia
Power. In June 2021, an expert witness to the Georgia Public Service Commission testified
that the startup of the new Vogtle reactors would likely be delayed until at least the summerof 2022, and that the plant owners’ schedules “are unachievable and cannot be relied upon.”464
This is even later than the most recent prediction from Georgia Power of January 2021, which
was five years later than originally planned.
On 23 July 2020, the former executive vice president of SCANA Corporation pleaded guilty infederal court to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with the constructionof the V.C Summer nuclear plant project in South Carolina which was halted in 2017. 465
Documents released in 2019 allege that the CEO and other officials conducted, “a years-longcover-up to hide huge losses in then-ongoing construction at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant.”466
This follows the July 2017 decision to terminate construction of the twin V.C. Summer AP-1000
reactor project. 467 According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the SCANA executive, Stephen
A. Byrne, was aware as early as June 2016 that the V.C. Summer construction schedule andcompletion dates were unrealistic and unlikely to be achieved. 468 Consequently, V.C. Summer
Unit 2 and 3 would not meet the construction completion deadline entitling them to federal
461 - WNISR, “Storm Damage Prompts Early Closure of Duane Arnold Nuclear Reactor in the U.S.”, 26 August 2020,see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Storm-Damage-Prompts-Early-Closure-of-Duane-Arnold-Nuclear-Reactor-in-the-U-S.html,
accessed 20 July 2021.
462 - WNISR, “End of Nuclear Generation at Indian Point, 50 km from Manhattan, New York”, 30 April 2021, see https://www.
worldnuclearreport.org/End-of-Nuclear-Generation-at-Indian-Point-50-km-from-Manhattan-New-York.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
463 - WNISR, “Closure of 47-Year-Old Indian Point Reactor Near New York City”, 30 April 2020, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.
org/Closure-of-47-Year-Old-Indian-Point-Reactor-Near-New-York-City.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
464 - Darrell Proctor, “More Vogtle Delays; Experts Target Mid-2022 Startup at Earliest”, POWER Magazine, 8 June 2021,
see https://www.powermag.com/more-vogtle-delays-experts-target-mid-2022-startup-at-earliest/, accessed 14 August 2021.
465 - ANA, “Former SCANA exec pleads guilty in Summer fraud case”, 27 July 2020, see https://www.ans.org/news/article-381/formerscana-exec-pleads-guilty-in-summer-fraud-case/, accessed 20 July 2021.
466 - John Monk, “SCANA conspirators helped Byrne spin lies about nuclear project, document alleges”, The State, 9 June 2020,see https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article243395241.html, accessed 5 July 2020.
467 - SCANA, “South Carolina Electric & Gas Company To Cease Construction And Will File Plan Of Abandonment Of The
New Nuclear Project”, CISION PR Newswire, 31 July 2017, see https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/south-carolinaelectric-- gas-company-to-cease-construction-and-will-file-plan-of-abandonment-of-the-new-nuclear-project-300496644.html,
accessed 20 July 2021.
468 - Ibidem.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 nuclear production tax credits worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars per year. 469
Byrne’s false and misleading statements contributed to SCANA’s success in obtaining state
rate increases to finance on-going construction. In February 2021, the former CEO of SCANA
also pleaded guilty to conspiracy fraud charges involving a cover-up of financial problems with
the V.C Summer project. 470
The guilty pleas follow Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) criminal investigations into
the failed nuclear project, which cost South Carolina power customers billions of dollars. FBI
investigations during the past year have been ongoing, extending beyond SCANA to include
amongst others, the Westinghouse corporation, the designer and supplier of the AP-1000
V.C Summer reactors. In May 2021, Westinghouse’s most senior executive managing thenuclear construction project was charged with the felony offence of lying to the FBI over hisrole in the scandal with SCANA. 471
During the past few years, utilities have both succeeded and failed in their ongoing efforts
to secure state financial support for operating nuclear plants, with the balance being in theindustry’s favor. As of July 2020, 13 reactors in the U.S. were receiving or are eligible forsubsidies as a result of state legislation such as Zero Emission Credits (ZEC) or equivalent:
Nine Mile Point, FitzPatrick and Ginna in New York; Clinton and Quad Cities in Illinois; Salemand Hope Creek in New Jersey; Millstone in Connecticut; and Davis Besse and Perry in Ohio(now rescinded with termination of HB6).
Attempts to secure further financial support for the U.S. nuclear industry have made significant
progress in the past year following the election of President Biden. On 24 June 2021, Democratic
Senators presented the Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021 (S. 2291)472
which would make existing merchant nuclear power owners/operators eligible for a tax creditof US$15/MWh. 473 Estimates have projected that if applied to eligible nuclear plants across thenation, it could yield US$50 billion in additional revenue for utilities by 2030. 474 The subsidies
on offer have emerged with the renewed commitment of the Biden administration to reduce
emissions and establish a “100% clean electric grid”. As one insider noted to Reuters news
agency, “There’s a deepening understanding within the administration that it needs nuclear tomeet its zero-emission goals’. 475 With no prospects of major nuclear plant construction in the469 - Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Subsidies for Nuclear Reactor Projects Waste Taxpayer Money”, 17 August 2017, see https://www.
taxpayer.net/energy-natural-resources/subsidies-for-nuclear-reactor-projects-waste-taxpayer-money/, accessed 20 July 2021.
470 - John Monk, “Ex-SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh pleads guilty to conspiracy tied to failed nuclear project”, The State, 24 February 2021,
see https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article249477970.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
471 - John Monk, “Former Westinghouse official to plead guilty in FBI probe of SCANA’s nuclear failure”, The State, 24 May 2021,
see https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article251639033.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
472 - U.S. Senate, “A Bill To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish a tax credit for production of electricity using
nuclear power”, also referenced to as “Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021”, 117th Congress, 1st Session,see https://www.cardin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/zero%20emissions%20nuclear%20PTC.pdf, accessed 22 July 2021.
473 - Senator Ben Cardin, “Cardin, Manchin, Carper, Whitehouse, Booker Introduce Bill to Extend Production Tax Credit for ZeroEmission Energy Sources to Existing Nuclear Plants”, Press Release, 24 June 2021, see https://www.cardin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/
release/cardin-manchin-carper-whitehouse-booker-introduce-bill-to-extend-production-tax-credit-for-zero-emission-energy-sourcesto-existing-nuclear-plants-, accessed 22 July 2021.
474 - Friends of the Earth, “Cardin backs $50 billion nuke bailout”, 26 May 2021, see https://foe.org/news/cardin-backs-50-billionnuke-bailout/, accessed 22 July 2021.
475 - Reuters, “U.S. eyes nuclear reactor tax credit to meet climate goals -sources”, 5 May 2021, see https://www.reuters.com/
business/sustainable-business/white-house-eyes-subsidies-nuclear-plants-help-meet-climate-targets-sources-2021-05-05/,
accessed 22 July 2021.

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coming years, 476 the legislative efforts have focused on providing subsidies to prevent further
reactor closures. Industry lobbying efforts of Congress and the promotion of nuclear energy asnecessary for emissions reductions appear to be paying off. 477
As of 1 July 2021, the final status of nuclear subsidies legislation remains unknown; however,there is every prospect of significant financial gain for nuclear utilities from 2022. Thus, while
it is inevitable that the size of the U.S. nuclear fleet will continue to decline, the decline is likely
to be slowed down, perhaps substantially, by the proposed direct subsidies.
The U.S. reactor fleet provided 789.9 TWh in 2020, a drop of 2.4 percent over 2019. Nuclear
plants provided a stable 19.7 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2020, though about
3 percentage points below the highest nuclear share of 22.5 percent, reached in 1995.
With only one new reactor started up in the past 20 years, the U.S. fleet continues to age, witha mid-2021 average of 40.7 years—exceeding 40 years for the first time—amongst the oldest in
the world: 44 units have operated for 41 and more years (of which three for more than 51 years)
and all but three for 31 and more years (see Figure 34).
Figure 34 · Age Distribution of the U.S. Nuclear Fleet

Age of U.S. Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age
0–10 Years
41

46

2 1

93 Reactors
Mean Age40.7 Years3

11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
51 Years and Over
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

Extended Reactor Licenses
As of 1 July 2021, 85 of the 93 operating U.S. units had already received 20-year Initial License
Renewals, which permits reactor operation during the period 40–60 years. In the past year,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) did not issue any additional 20-year license
renewals. Four reactors are currently listed as intending to apply for license extension in the
476 - Mark Cooper, “Building a least-cost, low-carbon electricity system with efficiency, wind, solar, & intelligent grid management:
why nuclear subsidies are an unnecessary threat to the transformation”, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law
School, July 2021, see https://www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/Building_a_21st_Century_Electricity_System.pdf,
accessed 22 July 2022.
477 - See for example the work of the Rhodium Group, “Pathways to Build Back Better: Maximizing Clean Energy Tax Credits”,
8 July 2021, see https://rhg.com/research/build-back-better-clean-energy-tax-credits/, accessed 10 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 period 2022–2024. 478 Under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954, as amended, and NRC
regulations, the NRC issues initial operating licenses for commercial power reactors for 40
years. NRC regulations permit license renewals that extend the initial 40-year license for up
to 20 additional years per renewal. However, in July 2017, the NRC published a final document
describing “aging management programs” that allow the NRC to grant nuclear power plants
operating licenses for “up to 80 years”. 479 As of 1 July 2021, the NRC has granted Subsequent
Renewed Operating Licenses to six reactors, which permit operation from 60 to 80 years. A
further seven reactors have their applications still under review.
The NRC on 4 December 2019 issued its first ever Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses
for Turkey Point-3 and -4. The license grants Florida Light and Power (FL&P) permission tooperate the reactors for a total of 80 years. 480 The reactors are located 32 kilometers (20 miles)
south of Miami and their previous 20-year license extensions, which were granted in 2002,
had allowed them to operate until 2032 and 2033. FL&P applied for an additional 20 years ofoperation in May 2018. 481
On 5 March 2020, the NRC granted Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses for the
Peach Bottom Unit 2 and Unit 3 owned by the Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Exelon). 482
Prior to this decision, Peach Bottom Unit 2 had an operating license until 8 August 2033,
while the license for Peach Bottom Unit 3 was to run until 2 July 2034. 483 Exelon applied to
the NRC on 10 July 2018 for subsequent license renewal for the reactors. 484 Peach Bottom-2
and -3 were both connected to the grid in 1974 and are General Electric MK1 Boiling Water
Reactors (BWRs). With the additional extension of 20 years, the reactors are licensed tooperate until 8 August 2053 and 2 July 2054 respectively.
The Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses for Peach Bottom-2 and-3 were contested by theorganization Beyond Nuclear. 485 In evidence, seeking a review by the Atomic Safety Licensing
478 - U.S.NRC, “Future Submittals of Applications”, as of 10 August 2021, see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html, accessed 10 August 2021.
479 - Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, “Generic Aging Lessons Learned for Subsequent License Renewal (GALL-SLR) Report”,
NRC, Final Report, NUREG-2191, Vol. 2, July 2017, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1718/ML17187A204.pdf, accessed 10 June 2020.
480 - U.S.NRC, “ISSUANCE Of Subsequent Renewed Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-31 And DPR-41 For Turkey Point Nuclear
Generating Unit Nos. 3 And 4 (EPID L-2018-RNW-0002)”, 4 December 2019, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1930/ML19305C879.
pdf; and Utility Dive, “FPL’s Turkey Point first US nuclear plant to get license out to 80 years”, 4 December 2020, see https://www.
utilitydive.com/news/fpls-turkey-point-first-us-nuclear-plant-to-get-license-out-to-80-years/568593/, both accessed 2 July 2020.
481 - U.S.NRC, “Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, Units 3 & 4 – Subsequent License Renewal Application”, Updated 11 June 2021,
see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/turkey-point-subsequent.html, accessed 14 August 2021.
482 - U.S.NRC, “Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit 3—Subsequent Renewed Facility Operating License Subsequent Renewed
License No. DPR-56”, Docket No. 50-278 5 March 2020, see http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28268685/1583938196653/pch_
slr_03052020_approval_ML20024G426.pdf?token=thU59yfOgtDRthueNS6NLUzJ8%20NY%3D; also NRC, “Peach Bottom Atomic
Power Station, Units 2 & 3 – Subsequent License Renewal Application”, see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/
applications/peach-bottom-subsequent.html; and Beyond Nuclear, “NRC Greenlights Peach Bottom 80-year license extension despite
significant safety questions”, 12 March 2020, see http://www.beyondnuclear.org/relicensing/; all accessed 2 July 2020.
483 - Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, “Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants—
Supplement 10, Second Renewal—Regarding Subsequent License Renewal for Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station Units 2 and 3–Final
Report”, NUREG-1437, U.S.NRC, January 2020, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2002/ML20023A937.pdf, accessed 2 July 2020.
484 - U.S.NRC, “Subsequent License Renewal Application: Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station Units 2 and 3—The Second License
Renewal Application”, Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-44 and DPR-56, 10 July 2018, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1819/
ML18193A773.pdf, accessed 10 May 2019.
485 - U.S.NRC, “In the Matter of Exelon Generation Company, LLC Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 & 3—Beyond
Nuclear, Inc.’s Amended Hearing Request And Petition To Intervene”, Before The Atomic Safety And Licensing Board, Docket
Nos. 50-277/278 SLR, 1 May 2019, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1912/ML19121A453.pdf; and Lindsay C. VanAsdalan, “Activists
challenge license extension for Peach Bottom nuclear plant”, York Dispatch, 6 March 2019, see https://eu.yorkdispatch.com/story/
news/2019/03/05/activists-challenge-license-extension-peach-bottom-nuclear-plant/3060252002/, both accessed 12 July 2019.

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Board (ASLB), expert witness David Lochbaum contends that Exelon in its application to
the NRC had failed to provide evidence of adequate aging management programs and on
how operating experience will be applied during the 60–80 year period of operation ofPeach Bottom-2 and -3. Lochbaum added: “Abundant evidence also speaks to gaps, deficiencies,
and uncertainties in present understanding of aging degradation mechanisms.” 486 The ASLB on
20 June 2019 denied the request for a review. A new filing to the NRC related to non-compliancewith the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and NRC regulations 10 CFR § 51.71
was filed in September 2019. 487 On 12 November 2020, the NRC upheld its decision granting
the licenses stating that it was correct to rely on NRC’s Generic Environmental Impact
Statement (GEIS) for license renewal. 488 Notably, two of the NRC Commissioners dissented
from the decision, arguing this interpretation violates the NRC’s obligations under the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 489
On 5 April 2021, the NRC granted Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses for Surry-1 and -2
in the state of Virginia, owned by Dominion Energy, which will permit operations at the plant
until 2052 and 2053 respectively. 490 On 24 August 2020, Dominion also submitted its applicationfor Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses for North Anna-1 and -2. 491 On 7 June 2021,
Duke Energy submitted an application for Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses for its
Oconee-1, -2 and -3. 492 If granted the reactors would be licensed to operate until 2053 and 2054
respectively.
While not guaranteeing reactors continued operation, multiple applications are expected
over the coming years for subsequent license renewals. On 17 March 2021, Florida Power &Light Company notified the NRC that it intends to apply for Subsequent Renewed Operating
Licenses for its St Lucie-1 and -2 reactors before the end of 2021. 493 Duke Energy Corporation

486 - David A. Lochbaum, “Proposed Subsequent License Renewal of Peach Bottom Units 2 and 3: Exelon’s Aging Management
Programs Fail to Provide Adequate Measures for Consideration of Operating Experience Throughout the Period of Extended
Operation”, Report prepared for Beyond Nuclear, 16 November 2018; Attached to “Declaration of David A. Lochbaum—In the Matterof Exelon Generation Co., L.L.C., Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 & 3”, Docket Nos. 50-277/278 SLR, U.S.NRC before
the Secretary, 16 November 2018, see http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28029077/1542673242727/PB-SLR_11192018_
Attachments+to+Hearing+Request.pdf?token=6dfkmNSlZgmM33rZ%2Fx%2FV4Bp3%2FWk%3D, accessed 12 July 2019.
487 - U.S.NRC, “In the Matter of Exelon Generation Company, LLC Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 & 3—Beyond
Nuclear, Inc.’s Motion For Leave To File New Contention Based On Draft Supplement 10 To Generic Environmental Impact
Statement For Subsequent License Renewal Of Peach Bottom Operating License”, Before The Atomic Safety And Licensing Board
And The Commission, Docket Nos. 50-277/278 SLR, 3 September 2019, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1924/ML19246C301.pdf,
accessed 5 July 2020.
488 - U.S.NRC, “In the Matter of Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3)–Commission
Memorandum and Order (CLI-20-11)”, Docket Nos. 50-277-SLR and 50-278-SLR, 12 November 2020, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/
ML2031/ML20317A110.pdf, accessed 11 August 2021.
489 - Paul M. Bessette, Ryan K. Lighty and Scott D. Clausen, “NRC Reaffirms Its Decision Allowing SLR Applicants to Rely on License
Renewal GEIS”, Morgan Lewis, 25 November 2020, see https://www.morganlewis.com/blogs/upandatom/2020/11/nrc-reaffirms-itsdecision-allowing-slr-applicants-to-rely-on-license-renewal-geis, accessed 11 August 2021.
490 - U.S.NRC, “Status of Subsequent License Renewal Applications”, as of 4 August 2021,
see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/subsequent-license-renewal.html, accessed 11 August 2021.
491 - Dominion, “North Anna Power Station Units 1 and 2 – Application for Subsequent License Renewal”, August 2020,see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2024/ML20246G696.pdf, accessed 14 August 2021.
492 - Duke Energy, “Application for Subsequent Renewed Operating Licenses – Oconee Nuclear Station (ONS), Units 1, 2, and 3”,
Docket Numbers 50-269, 50-270 and 50-287, Renewed License Numbers DPR-38, DPR-47 and DPR-55, 7 June 2021,
see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2115/ML21158A194.pdf, accessed 11 August 2021.
493 - Florida Power & Light Company, “Subsequent License Renewal Application Notification”, 17 March 2021,
see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2107/ML21076A314.pdf, accessed 11 August 2021.

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has said it plans to seek license extensions for all 11 of its reactors. 494 The Congressional moves
to provide extended financial support for reactor operations is likely to encourage additional
applications for 80-year operational licenses.

Reactor Closures
As a result of storm damage incurred on 10 August 2020, the 622 MW Duane Arnold-1 reactor
did not return to service and was permanently closed, the plant’s majority owner, NextEra
Energy Resources announced 25 August 2020. 495 It was previously scheduled for closure on
30 October 2020.
The single unit General Electric (GE) designed Mark-1 Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), the sameas Fukushima Daichi unit 1, is located in Palo, 13 km northwest of Cedar Rapids and is the
only commercial reactor in the mid-west U.S. state of Iowa. 496 The reactor cooling towers weresignificantly damaged in strong winds from a derecho, a straight-line storm of up to hurricane
force, which caused offsite power loss and automatic reactor shutdown. 497
The 46-year-old reactor was connected to the grid in May 1974. 498 In 2010, the NRC granted an
additional 20-year operating license permitting operation until 2034. 499 In July 2018, NextEra
Energy announced that it would close Duane Arnold in 2020 after renegotiation of a powerpurchase agreement that terminated a contract with the reactor as of October this year. Under
the agreement, NextEra agreed to supply electricity to the Iowa grid from its lower cost windenergy capacity, which will save customers US$300 million in electricity costs, on a net present
value basis, over 21 years, according to NextEra.500
In the other reactor closure during the past year, and forty-five years after first being
connected to the grid, the Indian Point-3 reactor closed on 30 April 2021, bringing to an end
nuclear generation at the site which is located on the Hudson River, 48 km from Manhattan,
New York.501 Long considered a major safety risk to millions of people, the closure of thereactors was secured under the terms of a historic agreement in January 2017 between the
494 - Ari Natter, “The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants”, Bloomberg, 4 February 2020, see https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-04/the-u-s-may-soon-have-the-world-s-oldest-nuclear-power-plants, accessed 2 July 2020.
495 - Kelly Andrejasich, “Storm damage prompts NextEra Energy to shut Duane Arnold nuclear plant early”, S&P Global,
25 August 2020, see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/082520-storm-damage-promptsnextera-energy-to-shut-duane-arnold-nuclear-plant-early, accessed 11 August 2021.
496 - Adam Moore, “Duane Arnold’s closure ends Iowa’s nuclear chapter”, Corridor Business Journal, 14 August 2018,see https://corridorbusiness.com/duane-arnolds-closure-ends-iowas-nuclear-chapter/, accessed 11 August 2021.
497 - U.S.NRC, Event Notification Report for August 11, 2020”, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Operations Center,see https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2020/20200811en.html, accessed 11 August 2021.
498 - PRIS, “Duane Arnold-1 Permanent Shutdown”, IAEA, as of 11 August 2021, see https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/
ReactorDetails.aspx?current=667, accessed 11 August 2021.
499 - U.S.NRC, “Duane Arnold Energy Center - License Renewal Application Renewed License Issued on 12/16/2010”, as of
28 August 2020, see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/duane-arnold-energy-center.html#appls,
accessed 11 August 2021.
500 - Aaron Larson, “Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant Will Close in 2020”, POWER Magazine, 29 July 2019,see https://www.powermag.com/duane-arnold-nuclear-plant-will-close-in-2020/; and Seeking Alpha, “NextEra to shut Duane Arnold
nuclear plant early after storm damage”, 25 August 2020, see https://seekingalpha.com/news/3608797-nextera-to-shut-duane-arnoldnuclear-plant-early-after-storm-damage, both accessed 11 August 2021.
501 - U.S. EIA, “New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant closes after 59 years of operation”, 30 April 2021,
see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47776, accessed 11 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 nuclear plant owner, Entergy, the non-governmental organization Riverkeeper and the state of
New York.502 Indian Point-2 closed on 30 April 2020.503
Entergy had invested over US$1 billion in the two remaining 1000 MW Units 2 and 3 in recent
years. Unit 1, a smaller 250 MW reactor, was closed in 1974 just 12 years after it had started up.
Indian Point-2 was connected to the grid on 26 June 1973, and Unit 3 on 27 April 1976. In closing
the last reactor, Entergy highlighted that it had surpassed the world record for continuous
operation of a light water reactor, having operated since refueling in April 2019 for 751 days.504
In April 2007, Entergy filed a license renewal application with the NRC for Indian Point-2
and -3, which were subsequently subject to sustained opposition from citizens groups over thefollowing decade.505 Operations of the two remaining Indian Point units were challenged on
two basic environmental requirements: a coastal zone management certification and a water
permit application. While Entergy had declared that it was exempt from needing the coastalzone management certification, New York State disagreed, and the issue continued in the
Court of Appeals. According to the 2017 agreement, Indian Point-2 was required to close nolater than April 2020 and Unit 3 one year later.
In terms of multiple safety issues with the Indian Point-2 and -3 over the decades, the mostserious in recent years was the discovery of major corrosion in steel bolts on the reactor corebaffle which surrounds the fuel and directs cooling water entering the reactor vessel.506 If thebaffle and former assembly do not remain intact, water can enter and leave the reactor vessel
without passing through and cooling the core.
In highlighting the significance of the closure of Indian Point, Riverkeeper pointed to theenergy efficiency and renewable energy projects implemented in New York State between theagreement for closure in 2017 and 2025, which will provide nearly triple the total amount of
power Indian Point once generated.507 The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) stated:
Indian Point was sited in the wrong place some 50 years ago—a location where a severe
accident would jeopardize the health of millions of people and where no large-scale evacuation
plan would be remotely feasible. The closure of Indian Point this week ends this risky chapter.
The retirement will happen on schedule with no red flags from reliability monitors at NYISO[New York Independent System Operator], and against the backdrop of accelerated climate
and clean energy progress in New York State that was almost unimaginable when the debate
over Indian Point began decades ago.508
502 - Riverkeeper, “Indian Point Agreement”, January 2017, see https://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Indian-PointClosure-Agreement-January-8-2017.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.
503 - WNISR, “Closure of 47‑Year‑Old Indian Point Reactor Near New York City”, 30 April 2020, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.
org/Closure-of-47-Year-Old-Indian-Point-Reactor-Near-New-York-City.html, accessed 10 August 2021.
504 - Entergy, “Entergy’s Indian Point Unit 3 to Permanently Shut Down”, 28 April 2021, see https://www.prnewswire.com/newsreleases/entergys-indian-point-unit-3-to-permanently-shut-down-301279342.html, accessed 10 August 2021.
505 - Vivian Yee and Patrick McGeehan, “Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant Could Close by 2021”, The New York Times, 6 January 2017,see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/nyregion/indian-point-nuclear-power-plant-shutdown.html, accessed 10 August 2021.
506 - UCS, “Core Former Baffle Bolt Event Indian Point Unit 2” 29 March, 2016, see https://cdn.allthingsnuclear.org/wp-content/
uploads/2016/03/20160330-ip2-ucs-backgrounder-core-former-bolt-event.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.
507 - Paul Gallay, “Closing Indian Point is the only way to assure clean and safe energy for New York”, Riverkeeper, 12 April 2021,
see https://www.riverkeeper.org/blogs/indian-point-blogs/closing-indian-point-is-the-only-way-to-assure-clean-and-safe-energy-fornew-york/, accessed 10 August 2021.
508 - Kit Kennedy, “Indian Point Is Closing, but Clean Energy Is Here to Stay”, Climate & Clean Energy Program, NRDC, 28 April 2021,
see https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kit-kennedy/indian-point-closing-clean-energy-here-stay, accessed 10 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 154Entergy has also stated that low natural gas prices and increased operating costs of thereactors were key factors in its decision to close Indian Point.509 A recent study highlighted thatrather than increasing natural gas electricity generation to meet New York State 2025 clean
energy targets, there will have to be a buildout of renewables, storage, and energy efficiency far
exceeding the loss in generation from the Indian Point reactors.510
The average age of the six reactors closed in the U.S. over the five-year period 2016–2020 was
46.2 years (see Figure 35), which remains far below their licensed lifetimes of 60 years.
Figure 35 · Evolution of Average Reactor Closure Age in the U.S.

Evolution of Nuclear Reactors' Average Closure Age in the U.S. 1963 – 1 July 2021
by Closure YearAge in Years

2016–2020
6 Reactors Closed
Average Closure Age: 46.2 Years

50
45

1
2
3
Number of Reactors

40

35

35

30

30

25

25

20

20

15

15

10

10
5

5
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting
1963 1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

509 - Mary Esch, “Curtain lowers on nuke plant a stone’s throw from Manhattan”, Associated Press, 29 April 2020,see https://apnews.com/41b32c474b9aa75bf4261bdac1816e22, accessed 3 July 2020.
510 - PSE, “Evaluating the potential for renewables, storage, and energy efficiency to offset retiring nuclear power generation in New
York”, April 2020, see https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PSE-Research-Brief_-Indian-Point_4_13_20.
pdf, accessed 3 July 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Reactor Construction

Simply stated, it is to develop an unachievable plan, fail relatively quickly,
and repeat the process to develop a new (and still unachievable) plan.
Don Grace, Vice President of Engineering for the Vogtle Monitoring Group,
on behalf of the Georgia Public Service Commission Public Interest Advocacy Staff,
on Southern Company approach to Vogtle Construction
June 2020511

The Vogtle Debacle
Only two commercial reactors are currently under construction on one site in the U.S., theAP-1000 reactors Vogtle-3, which officially began in March 2013, and Vogtle-4, which began inNovember 2013.512 The reactors are being built in Burke County, near Waynesboro, in the stateof Georgia, in the southeastern U.S. and are owned by Southern Company (parent company ofmajority Vogtle plant owner, Georgia Power).
In 2017, Southern Company gave fuel-loading times as November 2021 for Unit 3 andNovember 2022 for Unit 4, which compares with original planned startup dates in 2017 and2018. However, the operational dates from Southern are at variance with the assessment
made by the Georgia Public Services Commission (PSC) staff in its December 2016 quarterly
progress report, which indicated a credible completion date of 2023.513
While the project during the past year has passed certain construction milestones, as inprevious years and as reported in WNISR, evidence continues to emerge that reveals theenormous scale of the Vogtle project failure.
As of July 2021, construction of Unit 3 was 98 percent complete according to Southern
Company, compares with 81.2 percent completed as of March 2020.514 In the case of Unit 4,
Southern Company reported that it was 84 percent complete.515
Critics of the Vogtle project had long predicted that there would be delays and that costs would
be much higher.516 The original project cost approved by the Georgia PSC was US$6.1 billion
in 2009, which corresponds to a cost of US$2,440/kW (gross), whereas the 2017 estimate of
US$23 billion translates to a cost of US$9,200/kW. The revised 2018 estimates in the range
511 - Georgia Public Service Commission, “In the Matter Of: Georgia Power Company’s Twenty-Second Semi-Annual Vogtle
Construction Monitoring (“VCM”) Report–Direct Testimony of DonALD N. Grave P.E.–On Behalf of the Georgia Public Service
Commission Public Interest Advocacy Staff”, Docket No. 29849, 5 June 2020, see https://services.psc.ga.gov/api/v1/External/Public/
Get/Document/DownloadFile/181461/63474, accessed 14 August 2021.
512 - WNISR, “Construction Start on US Vogtle Unit 4”, 25 November 2013, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ConstructionStart-on-US-Vogtle.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
513 - Kristi E. Schwartz, “Evidence mounts that Vogtle project won’t start up in 2020”, E&E News, 8 February 2017,see https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/02/08/stories/1060049693, accessed 20 July 2021.
514 - Southern Company, “Building carbon-free nuclear energy Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4”, July 2021,
see https://www.southerncompany.com/innovation/vogtle-3-and-4.html, accessed 19 August 2021.
515 - Aaron Larson, “Fuel Loading Only Major Milestone Left for Vogtle Unit 3 Nuclear Project”, POWER Magazine, 30 July 2021,
see https://www.powermag.com/fuel-loading-only-major-milestone-left-for-vogtle-unit-3-nuclear-project/, accessed 19 August 2021.
516 - For example, see NIRS,“MIT Nuke Study Uses Unsupportable Reactor Cost Estimates”, Nuclear Information and Resource
Service, Press Release, 16 September 2010, see https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/09/16/mit-nuke-study-usesunsupportable-reactor-cost-estimates, accessed 23 May 2018; and Travis Madsen et al., “The High Cost of Nuclear Power—Why
America Should Choose a Clean Energy Future Over New Nuclear Reactors”, Maryland PIRG Foundation, March 2009,see https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/nukerelapse/calvert/highcostnpower_mdpirg.pdf, accessed 28 May 2019.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 of US$28 billion have increased costs to US$11,200/kW, a 4.6-fold increase over the approved
original estimate.517 These costs compare with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) 2009-assessment of the prospects for new nuclear power based on overnight costs of
US$20074,000/kW (US$20184,800/kW).518
As WNISR2018 reported, in December 2017, the Georgia PSC, following the recommendationfrom Southern Company, decided to continue to support the project. The Georgia PSC has
backed the Plant Vogtle project from the start, including awarding the generous Construction
Work In Progress (CWIP), where all construction costs incurred by Georgia Power are passed
directly on to the customer. The Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act, signed into law in2009, allows regulated utilities to recover from their customers the financing costs associatedwith the construction of nuclear generation projects—years before those projects are scheduled
to begin producing benefits for ratepayers.
As a result of the CWIP legislation, out of Georgia Power’s original estimated US$6. billion
Vogtle costs, US$1.7 billion is financing costs recoverable from the ratepayer. The utility began
recovering these financing costs from its customers starting in 2011. For that first year, therule translates to Georgia Power electric bills’ rising by an average of US$3.73 per month.
Georgia Power estimated that this monthly charge would escalate so that by 2018, a Georgia
Power residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month would have seen his/her bill go up
by US$10 per month due to Vogtle-3 and -4. As a result of increased costs of the project andapproval by the Georgia PSC, ratepayers had already paid US$2 billion to Georgia Power as ofNovember 2017.519 But given the long timescale of the project, including planned operational
life, the actual costs to ratepayers will be much higher.
Under the financing terms agreed with the Georgia PSC, the longer the Vogtle plant takes toconstruct, the higher its costs, which have invariably been passed on to Georgia ratepayers,
resulting in higher income streams for Georgia Power and therefore Southern. In reporting2018 Southern earnings, CEO Thomas A. Fanning stated that 2018, “was a banner year forSouthern Company (...) All of our state-regulated electric and gas companies delivered strong
performance with full-year 2018 earnings of US$2.23 billion, compared with earnings of
US$842 million in 2017.520
WNISR2019 reported extensively on the economics of the Vogtle project. According to an
expert testimony to the PSC on 5 June 2020,
The Staff CTC (cost to complete) analyses, which ignore the US$8.1 billion already incurredby the Company (Georgia Power) as of December 31, 2019, indicate that it is economic tocomplete the Project if the Company adheres to its current construction cost and the517 - Liam Denning, “Nuclear Power’s Big Problem Isn’t That It’s Nuclear”, Bloomberg, 27 September 2018, see https://www.bloomberg.
com/opinion/articles/2018-09-27/nuclear-power-s-big-problem-isn-t-that-it-s-nuclear, accessed 28 May 2019.
518 - John M. Deutch, Charles W. Forsberg, et al., “Update of the MIT 2003 Future of Nuclear Power”, MIT Energy Initiative,
Interdisciplinary Study, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009, see http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpowerupdate2009.pdf, accessed 5 August 2019.
519 - Southern Environmental Law Center, “Groups Intervene in Vogtle Cost Proceedings—Georgians Should Not Bear Financial
Burden of Georgia Power’s Project Mismanagement”, Press Release, 6 November 2017, see https://www.southernenvironment.org/
news-and-press/press-releases/groups-intervene-in-vogtle-cost-proceedings-georgians-should-not-bear-finan, accessed 28 May 2019.
520 - Southern Company, “Southern Company reports fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 earnings”, PR Newswire, 20 February 2019,see https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/southern-company-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2018-earnings-300798574.
html, accessed 28 May 2019.

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November 2021 and November 2022 regulatory COD [Commercial Operation Date] forecasts.
The Staff analyses indicate that it is not economic to complete the Project if there is a delay of
24 months or longer beyond the current regulatory CODs.521

There were major doubts before this year that Georgia Power would meet its COD target dates,
but this was confirmed during 2020–2021, including in relation to the start and completion of
Hot Functional Tests (HFT).522 In 2019, PSC staff had concluded that “at this time the status of
the Project is uncertain,” with major uncertainties whether the target date of HFTs scheduledfor Unit 3 on 31 March 2020 could be achieved.523 Fuel loading at that time was scheduled for
14 October 2020.
On 30 April 2020, Thomas Fanning, CEO of Georgia Power, stated that, “cold hydro testingis planned to begin in June or July, with hot functional testing beginning in August or
September.”524 This schedule changed again, when in June 2020, Southern announced that cold
testing would take place “this fall” to then be followed by hot testing.
Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s said in a statement:
The unexpected, late-stage changes to these planned activities is credit negative for Georgia
Power because it signals that challenges with the project continue, increasing the likelihoodof additional cost overruns and further schedule delays.525

HFT was then supposed to begin in January 2021 but was delayed and considered the primarycause for delay in commercial operation of the reactor. HFT of Vogtle-3 finally began on
25 April 2021 and was planned to be completed within 6–8 weeks.526 Apparently, Southern
Company reported to investors on 29 July 2021 that HFT had been completed.527
On 18 May 2021, Southern Company informed the Georgia Public Service Commission thatdelays in testing of the Vogtle-3 reactor would mean that operation would not start before

521 - Georgia Public Service Commission , “In The Matter Of: Georgia Power Company’s Twenty-Second Semiannual Vogtle
Construction Monitoring (“VCM”) Report – Direct Testimony And Exhibits Of Tom Newsome, PE, CFA; Philip Hayet; Lane Kollen,
CPA, CMA, CGMA – On Behalf Of The Georgia Public Service Commission Public Interest Advocacy Staff”, Before The Georgia
Public Service Commission, Docket No. 29849, 5 June 2020, see https://www.eenews.net/assets/2020/06/09/document_ew_04.pdf,
accessed 3 June 2020.
522 - HFT is a series of tests in which essentially the entire plant is tested in an integrated fashion. The Reactor Coolant System (RCS)
is heated in steps to the normal operating temperature and pressure (NOT and NOP) by running the Reactor Coolant Pumps.
Significant tests include measurement of thermal expansion and vibrations of the RCS, verifying the ability to control RCS pressureusing the pressurizer heaters and spray, and integrated operation of the secondary plant including supplying feedwater to the SteamGenerators via the condensate and feedwater systems. In addition, the main turbine will be rolled to full operating speed of 1800 RPM
to verify the operation.
523 - Georgia PSC, “In The Matter Of Georgia Power Company’s Nineteenth Semi-Annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring
Report—Direct Testimony And Exhibits Of Steven D. Roetger and William R. Jacobs, Jr., PhD—On Behalf Of The Georgia PublicService Commission Public Interest Advocacy Staff”, Testimony Before The Georgia Public Service Commission, Docket No. 29849,
30 November 2018.
524 - WNN, “Major component installed at Vogtle 3”, 14 May 2020, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Major-componentinstalled-at-Vogtle-3, accessed 4 July 2020.
525 - Joniel Cha, “Resequencing of Vogtle nuclear plant expansion activities is credit negative: Moody’s”, S&P Global, 24 June 2020,see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/062420-resequencing-of-vogtle-nuclear-plantexpansion-activities-is-credit-negative-moodys, accessed 4 July 2020.
526 - Georgia Power, “Vogtle Unit 3 begins Hot Functional Testing”, as published on PR Newswire, 26 April 2021,
see https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vogtle-unit-3-begins-hot-functional-testing-301276472.html, accessed 21 July 2021.
527 - Southern Company, “Building carbon-free nuclear energy—Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4”, 30 July 2021. op. cit.; and WNN, “Vogtle
in-service dates and cost forecast revised”, 29 July 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/In-service-dates-and-costforecast-revised-for-Vog, accessed 28 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 January 2022, at the earliest.528 The Commission was told that Unit 3 was 98 percent complete,
but Southern Nuclear Vice President Aaron Abramovitz said risk of delays and problems
doesn’t go away. “I would expect risk to decrease,” he told regulators. “I would not expect risk
to go to zero.”529
While COVID-19 has impacted workers on the site, delays have also been caused by theneed to replace electrical components and other work that the “company decided wasn’t up
to standard.” Georgia Power told Commissioners that there was evidence “that contractors
were declaring work complete without testing for deficiencies, relying on inspectors to catch it
and fix any problems later.” The company is currently engaged in hot functional testing of thefirst reactor and has encountered more expansion of metal parts as systems were heated upthan anticipated. “There’s a chance we may need to make some adjustments to the structural
supports” Stephen Kuczynski, President and CEO of Southern Nuclear, told Commissioners of
the thermal expansion issues. The PSC was informed that the current schedule for operationof Unit 4 was November 2022.

“Ratepayers will pay substantially more both prior to and after the
Units begin providing service due to the delays and cost overruns.”
Less than one month later, in June 2021, expert witness testimony from the lead analyst
and consultant for the PSC Staff Public Interest Advocacy Team for Vogtle Construction
Monitoring challenged Southern Company’s projection for start of operations of Vogtle-3.
Steven D. Roetger and William R. Jacobs, Jr gave evidence that cast major doubts on thereliability of schedules given by Southern.530 This included the fact that in the three months
between July 2020 and October 2020 the schedule for work slipped by three months, leading
Roetger and Jacobs to conclude that, “Considering the Company’s lack of performance
regarding schedule adherence, the assumption that Hot Functional Testing (HFT) would ‘startnear the beginning of next year’ was highly optimistic and not founded on past performance.”531“The primary drivers for the delay in the Commercial Operation Date (COD) from theCompany’s Vogtle Construction Monitoring (VCM) 23rd testimony are the delays in starting
HFT, the extended duration of HFT and the duration between completion of HFT and Fuel
Load,” according to Roetger’s and Jacobs.532 The detailed reasons for the delays were provided
to the PSC but were redacted from public disclosure, but relate to the “late completion andturnover of plant systems required for HFT.”
Under the CWIP, electricity rates for Georgia consumers have gone up 3.4 percent to pay forearlier costs and Georgia Power projects rates will rise at least another 6.6 percentage points
for a total increase of 10 percent.

528 - Jeff Amy, “Plant Vogtle now delayed until 2022 as costs mount, Georgia Power says”, Associated Press, 18 May 2021,
see https://eu.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2021/05/18/plant-vogtle-now-delayed-until-2022-costs-mount-georgia-powersays/5151589001/, accessed 21 July 2021.
529 - Ibidem.
530 - Georgia PSC, “In the Matter of Georgia Power Company’s Twenty-Fourth Semi-Annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring
Report—Direct Testimony of Steven D. Roetger, William R. Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D.—On Behalf of the Georgia Public Service Commission
Public Interest Advocacy Staff”, Docket No. 29849, 7 June 2021.
531 - Ibidem.
532 - The VCM’s are held twice annually where the company provides schedule details to the PSC.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Georgia Power is currently expected to recover approximately US$3.9 billion under the Nuclear
Construction Cost Recovery (“NCCR”) tariffs imposed on customers during the construction
period. “This is nearly double the US$2.1 billion the Company would have collected if the Units
had been completed in accordance with the certification schedule of 11 April 2016 and 2017.”533
Under the NCCR, Georgia Power is permitted to request to add US$8.0 billion to its rate baseonce Units 3 and 4 are in commercial service. The Georgia PSC points out,
This amount is more than 80 percent greater than the US$4.4 billion assumed at certification.
This additional US$3.6 billion in rate base will increase ratepayer revenue requirements byapproximately US$12 billion over the 60-year life of the Units and increase annual revenue
requirements by an average of US$380 million and US$350 million during the first five andten years in operation, respectively. In conclusion, ratepayers will pay substantially more bothprior to and after the Units begin providing service due to the delays and cost overruns.534

Lawsuits Against the Vogtle Project
Multiple lawsuits against the Vogtle project initiated over the years have continued throughthe courts. As reported in WNISR2018, on 13 February 2018 a coalition of groups filed in Fulton
County Superior Court a complaint challenging the Georgia PSC decision, declaring that it was
unlawful, violating the PSC’s own guidelines and Georgia state law.535 On 21 December 2018,
the court found that dissatisfied customers cannot raise concerns about the unfairness ofGeorgia PSC’s process “until 2022 or later, after the project is complete... The court dismissed
the appeal on technical grounds without addressing its substance,” attorney Kurt Ebersbachof Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) stated.536 “The people of Georgia have been
pre-paying for this mismanaged project since 2011, while the price tag has ballooned and the
project timeline has slipped again and again,” Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch
said. “Unless the court reverses the commission’s decision, Georgia Power customers remain
exposed to significant financial risk with seemingly no end in sight.”537
In October 2019, the Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the lower Court to determine
whether the citizens groups had met their burden to show that postponing their appeal until
after the project is finished would not provide them an adequate remedy.538 In April 2020,

533 - Georgia Public Service Commission, “In The Matter Of: Georgia Power Company’s Twenty-Second Semiannual Vogtle
Construction Monitoring (“VCM”) Report – Direct Testimony And Exhibits Of Tom Newsome, PE, CFA; Philip Hayet; Lane Kollen,
CPA, CMA, CGMA”, Docket No. 29849, 5 June 2020, op. cit.
534 - Ibidem.
535 - Dave Williams, “Plant Vogtle opponents appeal vote to complete nuclear project”, Atlanta Business Chronicle,
12 February 2018, see https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/02/12/plant-vogtle-opponents-appeal-vote-to-complete.html,
accessed 28 May 2019.
536 - Albany Herald, “Groups Challenge Court Decision Regarding Plant Vogtle Over Cost Concerns”, as published by Georgia Watch,
10 January 2019, see https://www.georgiawatch.org/groups-challenge-court-decision-regarding-plant-vogtle-over-cost-concerns/,
accessed 28 May 2019.
537 - Ibidem.
538 - Georgia Watch, “Georgia Court Of Appeals Sends Plant Vogtle Challenge Back To Fulton County Superior Court”,
30 October 2019, see https://georgiawatch.org/georgia-court-of-appeals-sends-plant-vogtle-challenge-back-to-fulton-county-superiorcourt/, accessed 4 July 2020.

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Fulton County Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case until
the reactors’ construction is finished.539
The most recent challenge to the Vogtle construction project was in May 2020, when theBlue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) filed a challenge to an NRC License
Amendment request from Southern.540 BREDL contends that, under the guise of a one-inchchange in the seismic gap between two critical walls in the Vogtle Unit 3 reactor, Southernhas admitted to a much more serious structural problem, the “dishing” of the nuclear plant’s
concrete foundation which creates instability.541 Southern contends that it’s just a minor
construction flaw, whereas BREDL expert witness, nuclear engineer Arne Gundersen, stated“that the sheer weight of the nuclear island building is causing it to sink into the red Georgia
clay.”542 During a preliminary oral hearing of Southern’s License Amendment request, thecase was heard by the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) on 1 July 2020. On
10 August 2020, the ASLB issued Memorandum and Order, denying BREDL’s intervention,and dismissing the two contentions and terminating the proceeding.543 On 4 September 2020
BREDL filed with the NRC seeking Commission review of the ASLB decision.544

Vogtle Federal Loan Guarantees
Under the terms of the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program, owners of
nuclear projects are able to borrow at below-market Federal Financing Bank rates with therepayment assurance of the U.S. Government. DOE loan guarantees permitted Vogtle’s owners
to finance a substantial portion of their construction costs at interest rates well below market
rates, and to increase their debt fraction, which significantly reduced overall financing costs.
In justification for the loan guarantee to Vogtle, the Obama administration stated in 2010 that
the Vogtle project represents an important advance in nuclear technology technology. Other
innovative nuclear projects may be unable to obtain full commercial financing due to theperceived risks associated with technology that has never been deployed at commercial scalein the U.S. The loan guarantees from this draft solicitation would support advanced nuclear

539 - Southern Environmental Law Center, “Fulton County Superior Court Again Rules that Flawed Decision to Continue Vogtle
Project May Not be Challenged Until Project is Finished”, 21 April 2020, see https://www.southernenvironment.org/news-and-press/
press-releases/court-again-rules-that-flawed-decision-to-continue-vogtle-project-may-not-be-challenged-until-project-is-finished,
accessed 4 July 2020.
540 - BREDL, “BREDL And Our Chapter Concerned Citizens Of Shell Bluff File Petition Regarding Plant Vogtle Plant 3 License
Amendment And Exemption”, 12 May 2020, see http://www.bredl.org/nuclear/200511_BREDL_Petition_to_Intervene_Vogtle_3.htm;
and U.S.NRC, “In the Matter of Southern Nuclear Operating Co.–License Amendment Application for Combined Licenses NPF-91,
Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Unit 3—Petition For Leave To Intervene And Request For Hearing By The Blue Ridge Environmental
Defense League And Its Chapter Concerned Citizens Of Shell Bluff Regarding Southern Nuclear Operating Company’s Request For A
License Amendment And Exemption For Unit 3 Auxiliary Building Wall 11 Seismic Gap Requirements, LAR-20-001”, Docket No. 52025-LA-3, NRC-2008-0252, 11 May 2020, see https://www.bredl.org/pdf6/200511_BREDL_Petition_to_Intervene_Vogtle_3_Docket_52025-LA-3.pdf, both accessed 4 July 2020.
541 - BREDL, “Residents Fight to Bring Case Against Georgia Nuclear Plant Legal Brief”, 15 June 2020, see http://www.bredl.org/
press/2020/200615_PR_Reply_Filed_VEGP-3_Plant_Sinking.pdf, accessed 4 July 2020.
542 - Ibidem.
543 - U.S.NRC, “In the Matter of: Southern Nuclear Operating Company License Amendment Application for Combined License
NPF-91 Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Unit 3—Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League’s notice of appeal and brief in support ofappeal from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decision denying admissibility of contentions in license amendment proceeding”,
4 September 2020, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2024/ML20248J166.pdf, accessed 12 August 2020.
544 - See U.S.NRC, “NRC Staff Answer in Opposition to Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League’s Appeal of LBP, Docket N0 52 025,
28 September 2020, p.6, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2027/ML20272A257.pdf, accessed 12 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 energy technologies that will catalyze the deployment of future projects that replicate or
extend a technological innovation.545
The loan-guarantee program has therefore played a critical role in permitting the Vogtle
project to proceed but has failed to catalyze a nuclear revival, with no prospects of further
new large nuclear plants being built in the U.S. in the coming decades. Oglethorpe Power
Corporation (OPC), which has a 30-percent stake in Vogtle, confirmed in August 2017 thatit had submitted a request to DOE for up to US$1.6 billion in additional loan guarantees. The
company already had a US$3 billion loan guarantee from DOE. The other owners—Georgia
Power and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG)—have secured US$8.3 billion
in separate loan guarantees from DOE since 2010, when they were approved by the Obamaadministration. Both of these companies confirmed in August 2017 that they were seeking
additional loan guarantee funding.
On 29 September 2017, DOE Secretary Perry announced approval of additional US$3.7 billion
loan guarantees for the Vogtle owners, with US$1.67 billion to Georgia Power, US$1.6 billion to
OPC, and US$415 million to MEAG.546 A decision on terminating the Vogtle project would raise
the prospect of repayment of the previous US$8.3 billion loan to Southern.547 In April 2019, theDOE provided an additional loan guarantee of US$3.7 billion to Plant Vogtle construction, only
the second loan guarantee issued under the Trump administration and the second to Plant
Vogtle.548 This brings the total loan guarantees provided for the Vogtle project by the DOE to
US$12.03 billion.549

545 - Peter W. Davidson, “Fostering the Next Generation of Nuclear Energy Technology—Investing in American Energy”, Loan
Programs Office, U.S.DOE, 29 September 2014, see https://energy.gov/lpo/articles/fostering-next-generation-nuclear-energytechnology, accessed 6 July 2020.
546 - U.S.DOE, “Secretary Perry Announces Conditional Commitment to Support Continued Construction of Vogtle Advanced
Nuclear Energy Project”, 29 September 2017, see https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-perry-announces-conditionalcommitment-support-continued-construction-vogtle, accessed 12 August 2020.
547 - Peter Maloney, “Westinghouse bankruptcy puts $8.3B in federal loan guarantees for Vogtle plant at risk”, Utility Dive,
3 April 2017, see http://www.utilitydive.com/news/westinghouse-bankruptcy-puts-83b-in-federal-loan-guarantees-for-vogtlepl/439508/, accessed 28 May 2019.
548 - Jacqueline Toth, “DOE Program’s $3.7 Billion Loan Highlights Lack of Action on Other $40 Billion It Holds”, Morning Consult,
8 April 2019, see https://morningconsult.com/2019/04/08/doe-programs-3-7-billion-loan-highlights-lack-of-action-on-other-40-billionit-holds/, accessed 10 May 2019.
549 - Taxpayers for Common Sense, “DOE Loan Guarantee Program: Vogtle Reactors 3 & 4”, 21 March 2019, see https://www.taxpayer.
net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/3-21-19-ENR-Vogtle-Fact-Sheet_MARCH-2019_-v.4.pdf, accessed 10 May 2019.

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Guilty Pleas and On-going FBI Investigations
Over V.C. Summer ProjectThis guilty plea shows that the investigation into the V.C. Summer
nuclear debacle did not end with the former SCANA executives… we arecommitted to seeing this case through and holding all individual andcorporate wrongdoers accountable.
Acting United States Attorney DeHart
10 June 2021.550

As reported in previous WNISR editions, the decision on 31 July 2017 by Santee Cooper and
SCANA Corporation (the parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas or SCG&E) toterminate construction of the V.C. Summer reactor project has seen ongoing financial andlegal fallout for the companies and ratepayers of South Carolina during the past three years.
At the time of cancellation, the total costs for completion of the two AP-1000 reactors at V.C.
Summer was projected to exceed US$25 billion—a 75 percent increase over initial estimates.551
The conspiracy to deceive regulators and ratepayers, which has been revealed by federal
investigations, was intended to allow SCANA to apply for numerous rate increases to help
pay for ongoing reactor construction. The rate increases were “fraudulently inflated bills tocustomers for the stated purpose of funding the project,” according to federal filings.552 Under
legislation passed by the South Carolina Public Services Commissioners in 2008—but strongly
opposed by civil society groups—construction costs for the V.C. Summer reactors were to be
paid by state ratepayers. When SCANA was taken over by Dominion Energy in January 2019
it “committed to make extensive remedial efforts to redress ratepayers,” which is estimatedto be approximately US$4 billion. Exactly what this means remains unclear, as under current
plans Dominion will be charging South Carolina ratepayers an additional US$2.3 billion overthe next two decades for the collapsed V.C. Summer project.553 The 8 June 2020 filing made it
clear that Dominion will not be prosecuted, with a utility spokesman stating that “We have nofurther comment regarding this matter or the investigation”.554
During the past year, executives from both SCANA and Westinghouse have been found guiltyof unlawfully withholding information for years about the failure of the V.C Summer projectboth from regulators and shareholders.

550 - U.S. Attorney’s Office District of South Carolina, “Westinghouse Director During Nuclear Debacle Pleads Guilty in Federal
Court to Making False Statement to FBI”, United States Department of Justice, 10 June 2021, see https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/pr/
westinghouse-director-during-nuclear-debacle-pleads-guilty-federal-court-making-false, accessed 20 July 2021.
551 - Robert Walton, “SCANA agrees to settle $2B class action suit over nuclear costs”, Utility Dive, 26 November 2018,see https://www.utilitydive.com/news/scana-agrees-to-settle-2b-class-action-suit-over-nuclear-costs/542911/, accessed 26 May 2019.
552 - District Court of the United States for the District of South Carolina, “United States Vs Stephen Andrew Byrne – Plea
Agreement”, Criminal No 3:20 355, Made 21 May 2020, Filed 8 June 2020, see https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Byrnecourt-plea-June-8-2020.pdf; and The State, “SCANA conspirators helped Byrne spin lies about nuclear project, document alleges 9
June, 2020”, Updated 15 June 2020, see https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article243395241.html, both accessed 6 July 2020.
553 - Avery G. Wilks and Andrew Brown, “Ex-SCE&G official will cooperate as witness in criminal probe of failed VC Summer project”,
The Post and Courier, 9 June 2020, see https://www.postandcourier.com/business/ex-sce-g-official-will-cooperate-as-witness-incriminal-probe-of-failed-vc-summer/article_e8a99396-aa4d-11ea-bcb3-77378b75c486.html, accessed 6 July 2020.
554 - Ibidem.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 As of 1 July 2021, final sentences in these cases are pending. Former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh,and others, according to the prosecutors, had participated in an illegal abuse of public trust byengaging in a deliberate plan to hide the extent of SCANA’s financial troubles at the nuclear
project from the public, from regulators and from investors in the publicly traded utility. UnitedStates Attorney Peter M. McCoy in the Marsh case told the press in February 2021, “What ismost exciting about today is that justice has been served. For years, institutions and individuals
have abused the public trust with little to no accountability. This includes corporations thathave increased profits at the expense of their customers.”555
The Director of Savannah River Site Watch (SRS Watch) Tom Clements stated stated that
“The [US]$5 million fine is really like a traffic ticket to him…I assume he (Marsh) is goingto suffer for two years in prison, but he really deserves a much longer prison sentence forwhat he’s done to the state of South Carolina,” said Clements, who predicted more people will
eventually be charged.556 Although agreeing to two years prison time, the final sentencing of
the former SCANA CEO will not take place for months or even years as he is cooperating with
FBI investigators as they continue gathering evidence for possible charges against others at
SCANA, Westinghouse and beyond.
In the case brought against Carl Dean Churchman, former vice President of Westinghouse
Electric Corporation and the director of the V.C. Summer project for the company, it
was found that he was communicating “with colleagues from the Westinghouse Electric
Corporation through multiple emails in which they discussed the viability and accuracy of(completion dates) and thereafter, he reported those dates to executives of SCANA and Santee
Cooper during a meeting held on Feb. 14, 2017.”557 On 10 June 2021, Churchman, who was
Westinghouse’s vice-president of new plants and major projects at the time, pleaded guilty to
the felony offence of lying to the FBI, prompting FBI Special Agent Susan Ferensic to state that
“Today’s plea highlights the FBI’s determination to conduct a comprehensive investigationthat yields the truth…We will continue to ask important questions and identify all involved inthis failed nuclear project.”558
A parallel legal case, brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against
SCANA executives, was settled in December 2020. They were accused of civil fraud in beingat the center of a scheme that artificially inflated SCANA’s stock price in the period 2014-2017.
The proposed settlement, announced by the SEC on 2 December 2020, requires SCANA to pay
a US$25 million civil penalty, and SCANA and SCE&G to pay US$112.5 million in disgorgement
plus prejudgment interest.559

555 - Avery G. Wilks and Conor Hughes, “Ex-SCANA CEO pleads guilty to fraud in SC nuclear fiasco: ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this’”,
The Post and Courier, 7 February 2021, see https://www.postandcourier.com/news/local_state_news/ex-scana-ceo-pleads-guilty-tofraud-in-sc-nuclear-fiasco-im-sorry-its-come/article_6687ce9c-751c-11eb-8678-07d1d205c4db.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
556 - Ibidem.
557 - John Monk, “Former Westinghouse official to plead guilty in FBI probe of SCANA’s nuclear failure”, The State, 24 May 2021,
see https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article251639033.html, accessed 20 July 2021.
558 - U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of South Carolina, “Westinghouse Director During Nuclear Debacle Pleads Guilty in Federal Court
to Making False Statement to FBI”, U.S. Department of Justice, 10 June 2021, op. cit.
559 - SEC, “Securities and Exchange Commission v. SCANA Corporation, et al., No. 3:20-cv-00882-MGL (D.S.C., filed December 2,2020)”, Litigation Release No. 24976, 3 December 2020, see https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2020/lr24976.htm,
accessed 20 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart stated in June 2021, “It’s clear that our investigation into
the V.C. Summer nuclear debacle didn’t end with the SCANA case,” he said. “Our office iscommitted to seeing this investigation through and holding all individuals and companies who
participated in this fiasco accountable.”560
The cancellation of the V.C. Summer project adds to the history of 40 other stranded nuclear
reactor projects in the United States whose construction started mostly in the 1970s and whichwere abandoned between 1977 and 1989.

Securing Subsidies to Prevent Closures
As WNISR has reported in recent years, utilities have been actively lobbying for statelegislation and contracts that would provide significant financial support for the operationof their uneconomic reactors (see WNISR2018 – Annex 4). Between 2009 and 2025 a total of
25 reactors were scheduled for early retirement, of which 12 have already been closed, three
more are scheduled for closure, six will close unless they can access new subsidies and two had
their closure delayed following subsidy programs (see Figure 36 and Table 6).
As of 1 July 2021, legislation in five states (Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York andOhio) had been enacted, (with one redaction in Ohio as a result of the FirstEnergy corruption
scandal, see below) which in total provided state subsidies to 13 reactors at ten nuclear plants.
All of these five states have unbundled, retail-choice electricity markets, where generators
do not receive cost recovery from state regulatory commissions. These account for 9 percentof the utility-scale generating capacity in those five states and 13 percent of the U.S. nuclear
generating capacity.561
Central to the future of nuclear power in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland
Interconnection LLC (PJM) wholesale electricity market are the rules expected to be proposedby the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).562 In June 2018, FERC invalidated
the PJM market rules.563 The FERC order relates to how the PJM sets the price of capacity it
procures through its capacity market, known as the Reliability Pricing Model (RPM). They willaffect how state subsidies, including ZECs, will be considered in the wholesale market. At issue
is whether the subsidies being received by utilities for their nuclear plants will be factored into
the capacity auction pricing. As reported in previous WNISRs, much of the legislation passedin the five states has been Zero Emission Credits or ZECs, which have evolved from small-scale
renewables to thousands of megawatts from larger nuclear units. FERC has noted that “With560 - Scott Judy, “Who’s the Next Target in Feds’ Nuke Plant Fraud Investigation?”, Engineering News Record, 24 June 2021,
see https://www.enr.com/articles/51918-whos-the-next-target-in-feds-nuke-plant-fraud-investigation, accessed 20 July 2021.
561 - U.S. EIA, “Five states have implemented programs to assist nuclear power plants”, U.S. Energy Information Agency,
7 October 2019, see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534, accessed 7 July 2020.
562 - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission ofnatural gas, oil, and electricity. FERC also regulates natural gas and hydropower projects.
563 - Sonal Patel, “FERC Nixes PJM’s Fixes for Capacity Market Besieged by Subsidized Resources”, POWER Magazine, 5 July 2018,see https://www.powermag.com/ferc-nixes-pjms-fixes-for-capacity-market-besieged-by-subsidized-resources/?printmode=1,
accessed 7 July 2020.

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each such subsidy, the market becomes less grounded in fundamental principles of supply anddemand.”564
Figure 36 · Timelines of 23 Reactors Subject to Early Retirement in the United States

Timelines of 23 U.S. Reactors Subject to Early-Retirement 2009–2025
as of 1 July 2021
Closed Units
Crystal River-3*
San Onofre-2
San Onofre-3
Kewaunee
Vermont Yankee
Fort Calhoun-1
Oyster Creek
Pilgrim-1
Three Mile Island-1
Indian Point-2
Duane Arnold-1
Indian Point-3
Units Scheduled for Closure
Palisades
Diablo Canyon-1
Diablo Canyon-2
Early Closure Without New Subsidies**
Byron-1
Byron-2
Dresden-2
Dresden-3
Reversed Early Closure
Davis Besse-1
Perry-1***
Beaver Valley-1
Beaver Valley-2

2009
2012
2012
2013
2014
2016
2018
2019
2019
2020
2020
2021
2022
2024
2025
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2021
2021
2021
10

Construction

Operation

Expected
Remaining
Operation© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

0

LicenseRenewal10

20Date of Closure
or Expected Closure
Reversed Closure Date

30

40

50

60

Early Closure Reversed
Early Closure Reversed, uncertain
Early Closure in Question
License Renewal Withdrawn

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes:* Crystal River: No production after 2009 (WNISR considers it closed as of this date). Official closure announced in 2013. Renewal application submitted
in 2008, withdrawn in 2013. See U.S. NRC, “Crystal River – License Renewal Application”, Updated 9 December 2016, see https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/
operating/licensing/renewal/applications/crystal-river.html, accessed 8 September 2020.
** Reactors to be closed in 2021 in case Exelon is not able to secure subsidies. See Exelon, “Exelon Generation Submits Decommissioning Plans for Byron andDresden Nuclear Plants”, 28 July 2021, see https://www.exeloncorp.com:443/newsroom/exelon-generation-submits-decommissioning-plans-for-byron-anddresden-nuclear-plants, accessed 31 July 2021.
*** License Renewal Application cancelled in 2018. See FENOC, “Perry Nuclear Power Plant—Change of Intent to Submit License Renewal Application”, First
Energy Nuclear Operating Company, 27 November 2018, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1833/ML18331A155.pdf, accessed 8 September 2020.

In December 2019, FERC released an order565 directing PJM566 to significantly expand its
minimum offer price rule (MOPR) to mitigate the impacts of state-subsidized resources on
the capacity market. The ruling has the potential to undermine renewable energy development
and as such is likely to be legally challenged by renewable energy industry associations and564 - FERC, “Order Rejecting Proposed Tariff Revisions, Granting In Part And Denying In Part Complaint, And Instituting Proceeding
Under Section 206 Of The Federal Power Act”, Docket Nos. EL16-49-000, issued 29 June 2018, p. 3,
see https://elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/filelist?accession_number=20180629-4005, accessed 24 August 2021.
565 - FERC, “Order Establishing Just And Reasonable Rate”, Docket Nos. EL16-49000 and EL18-178-000, 169 FERC 61,239,
issued 19 December 2019, see https://www.pjm.com/-/media/documents/ferc/orders/2019/20191219-el16-46-000-el18-178-000.ashx,
accessed 7 July 2020.
566 - Adam Keech, “Capacity Market Minimum Offer Price Rule Order”, Vice President of Market Operations, Market Implementation
Committee, PJM, 8 January 2020, see https://www.pjm.com/-/media/committees-groups/committees/mic/2020/20200108/20200108item-04a-ferc-order-on-mopr.ashx, accessed 7 July 2020.

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environmental groups, which are particularly concerned about the ruling’s de-facto support
for continued fossil fuel use.567 It was utilities with significant nuclear capacity that were mostconcerned by the FERC ruling. Dependent on capacity market revenues, ZECs or equivalent
exist in Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Ohio (subsequently rescinded) andprovide state subsidies to reactors.
Table 6 – 19 Early-Retirements for U.S. Reactors 2009–2025
Reactor

Owner

Decision Date

Closure/Expected Closure Date
(last electricity generation)

Age atClosure(in years)

NRC 60-Year License
Approval

Oyster Creek

Exelon8 December 2010

December 2019 brought forward
to 17 September 2018

49

Yes

Crystal River-3

Duke Energy

5 February 2013

26 September 200932

Application withdrawn

Dominion Energy

22 October 2012

7 May 2013

39

Yes

San Onofre-2 & -3

SCE/SDG&E

7 June 2013

January 201229 / 28

No application

Vermont Yankee

Entergy

28 August 201329 December 2014

42

Yes

PilgrimEntergy

13 October 2015

31 May 2019

47

Yes

Diablo Canyon-1 & -2

PG&E

21 June 2016

November 2024 & August 2025

40

Suspended

Fort Calhoun

OPPD

26 August 2016

24 October 2016

43

Yes

PalisadesEntergy

8 December 2016/
28 September 2017

2022

51

Yes

Entergy

9 January 201730 April 2020

47

30 April 2021

44

Three Mile Island-1

Exelon30 May 2017

September 2019

45

Yes

Duane Arnold

NextEra27 July 2018

30 October 2020
Brought forward
to 10 August 2020

46

Yes

Exelon28 July 2021(a)September 2021

36 / 34Yes

51 / 50

Yes

Kewaunee

Indian Point-2
Indian Point-3

Byron-1 & -2
Dresden-2 & -3

November 2021

Yes

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes
Early closure decisions for four reactors (Beaver Valley-1 and -2, Davis-Besse and Perry) have been reversed and those reactors have been removed from thetable since the WNISR2020 version.
(a) - Exelon, “Exelon Generation Submits Decommissioning Plans for Byron and Dresden Nuclear Plants”, 28 July 2021, see https://www.exeloncorp.com:443/
newsroom/exelon-generation-submits-decommissioning-plans-for-byron-and-dresden-nuclear-plants, accessed 31 July 2021.

The long-expected FERC order did not offer an exemption for existing nuclear plants thatcurrently receive state support. The FERC decision would require reactor operators receiving
state zero-emission credit568s and much other subsidized resources, including energy procured
through a state renewable portfolio standard, to bid their capacity into PJM without factoringin the subsidies. That could raise their capacity market bid price leading to them to fail to clear
567 - Jeff St. John, “FERC Denies Rehearings on PJM Capacity Orders, in a Blow to States’ Renewables Plans”, GreenTechMedia,
16 April 2020, see https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ferc-denies-rehearings-on-its-pjm-capacity-rulings-opening-doorfor-legal-challenges, accessed 7 July 2020.
568 - Kathryne Cleary, “What the Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) Means for Clean Energy in PJM”, Resources, 21 January 2020,see https://www.resourcesmag.org/common-resources/what-minimum-offer-price-rule-mopr-means-clean-energy-pjm/#:~:text=In%20
December%202019%2C%20the%20Federal,resources%20on%20the%20capacity%20market, accessed 7 July 2020.

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the auction and thereafter stop receiving capacity market fees. Nuclear plants would have to bid
into the capacity market at their net Avoidable Cost Rate (ACR), which equals a predetermined
ACR minus any expected net revenues from the energy and ancillary services markets. The
proposed ACR numbers (from 2018) show that nuclear had the highest possible ACR value ofany technology, at US$631/MW-day.569 If this number is set at a level too high, the result could
be that the reactors do not clear the capacity market, with resulting risk of closure.570
As noted in an analysis by Resources for the Future, the FERC order also applies to resourcesthat are eligible to receive state subsidies, which potentially include reactors that currently do
not receive state financing.571 Exelon, the largest nuclear reactor operator in the U.S., called the
FERC decision “stunning”, and that “by granting the request of fossil generators, this ordercompletely undermines state clean and renewable energy programs and will cost thousandsof jobs, increase air pollution and unnecessarily raise electricity bills by US$2.4 billion
annually”.572
The complex impact of the FERC MOPR ruling has been to raise questions over the future of
the PJM capacity market, with the possibility of states deciding to withdraw from the regional
market.
One consequence of the FERC ruling was a delay to the 2021 PJM auction (which are held
twice annually). When it was held in June 2021, nuclear generation cleared the most additional
capacity compared to the previous capacity auction, with an additional 4,460 MW.573 Industry
analysts noted that Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) and Exelon’s Salem plant in
New Jersey and PSEG’s Hope Creek plant in New Jersey likely secured contracts by appealing for
PJM’s unit-specific exemption to the MOPR, which allows them to bypass default numbers PJM
may assign a resource because of its status as a state-subsidized resource.574 One explanation
for the more successful auction for nuclear plants compared to the previous auction was theimpact of the Biden administration’s active support for nuclear power.575 This was despite the64-percent reduction in the auction price compared to 2018, with PJM confirming that for theperiod 2022–2023 the price was US$50/MW-day compared to the US$140/MW-day three years
ago.576
Exelon, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealed that its Byron,
Dresden and Quad Cities nuclear plants in Illinois all failed to sell their power at the PJM

569 - Ibidem.
570 - Ibidem.
571 - Ibidem.
572 - Exelon, “Exelon Statement on FERC’s Minimum Offer Price Rule Order”, 19 December 2019, see https://www.exeloncorp.com/
newsroom/media-statement-on-ferc-mopr, accessed 7 July 2020; and Nucleonics Week, “Subsidized resources face challenges in Eastern
capacity markets: analysts”, 9 January 2020.
573 - Catherine Moorhouse, “Nuclear capacity increases by 4.5 GW in long-delayed ‘MOPRed’ PJM auction, coal loses 8 GW”,

Utility Dive, 3 June 2021, see https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nuclear-capacity-increases-by-44-gw-in-long-delayed-mopred-pjmauction/601208/, accessed 11 August 2021.
574 - Ibidem.
575 - Ibidem.
576 - Scott Van Voorhis, “Fate of Illinois nuclear plants in balance after 3 fail to clear PJM auction and subsidy plan stalls”, Utility Dive,
7 June 2021, see https://www.utilitydive.com/news/fate-of-illinois-nuclear-plants-in-balance-after-pjm-auction-fail-and-stall/601324/,
accessed 11 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 auction, losing out to other power plants and energy resources.577 Two reactors each at the
Byron and Dresden sites are currently slated to be closed in September and November 2021
respectively, while Quad Cities is in receipt of Illinois state subsidies. PJM confirmed that thefour reactors can retire without putting overall grid reliability at risk.578
A proposal from the PJM to the FERC MOPR ruling was issued on 30 June 2021.579 Under the
PJM proposal, state policies providing out-of-market payments to generating resources, suchas nuclear plants, would be recognized as being a legitimate exercise of a state’s authority overthe electric supply mix. Those policies would not be subject to the MOPR “so long as the policy
does not constitute the sale of a FERC-jurisdictional product that is conditioned on clearing in
any RPM [Reliability Pricing Model] auction,” the grid operator said in its proposal summary.580
The proposals from PJM are planned to be incorporated into the next auction which to be heldin December 2021, for the period 2023–2024.
While efforts to secure ZEC legislation stalled in Pennsylvania, the decision by the state
Governor to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has led to the choice toreverse the decision to close the Beaver Valley Units 1 and 2. Plant owner Energy Harbor
Corp. notified the PJM Interconnection grid operator that it would rescind its March 2018
deactivation notices. The reactors were owned previously by Energy Solutions which had
filed for bankruptcy in 2018. Beaver Valley Units 1 and 2 were scheduled to close in May andOctober 2021. The RGGI is a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon dioxide emissions frompower plants.
“The decision to rescind the deactivations for Beaver Valley was largely driven by the efforts ofGovernor Wolf’s administration to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative... and will begin
to help level the playing field for our carbon-free nuclear generators” and will help it market“carbon free energy” to customers”, said Energy Harbor President and Chief Executive Officer
John Judge on 13 March 2020.581 Analysis in October 2019 reported that a carbon price of US$3
to US$5 per ton would be enough to keep nuclear plants in Pennsylvania economically viable
for the foreseeable future.582 Carbon allowances were sold at US$5.65 per ton in the RGGI’s
most recent quarterly auction.583 The states that are in the RGGI are Connecticut, Delaware,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and
New Jersey; Virginia in early 2020 passed a law that paves the way for it to join.
577 - U.S. States Securities and Exchange Commission, “Form 8-K—Current Report”, Registrant Exelon Corporation and Exelon
Generation Company, 2 June 2021, see https://investors.exeloncorp.com/node/12696/html, accessed 11 August 2021.
578 - WIFR Newsroom, “Byron Nuclear Plant scheduled to shut down in Sept., Exelon says”, 28 July 2021,
see https://www.wifr.com/2021/07/28/byron-nuclear-plant-scheduled-shut-down-sept-exelon-says/, accessed 12 August 2021.
579 - PJM, “Summary of the Updated PJM MOPR Proposal”, 30 June 2021, see https://pjm.com/-/media/committees-groups/cifpmopr/2021/20210630/20210630-cifp-mopr-pjm-proposal.ashx, accessed 11 August 2021.
580 - Nuclear News Wire, “PJM board okays plan to ease concerns with MOPR ruling”, American Nuclear Society, 14 July 2021,
see https://www.ans.org/news/article-3067/pjm-board-okays-plan-to-ease-concerns-with-mopr-ruling/, accessed 11 August 2021.
581 - State Impact Pennsylvania, “Owners of Pa.’s Beaver Valley nuclear power station will keep it open because of state’s climateplan”, 13 March 2020, see https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/03/13/owners-of-pa-s-beaver-valley-nuclear-power-stationwill-keep-it-open-because-of-states-climate-plan/, accessed 6 July 2020; and DailyEnergyInsider, “Energy Harbor Corp rescinds
deactivation of Beaver Valley nuclear power facility”, 18 March 2020, see https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/24695-energy-harborcorp-rescinds-deactivation-of-beaver-valley-nuclear-power-facility/, accessed 25 July 2020.
582 - Resources for the Future, “Options for Issuing Emissions Allowances in a Pennsylvania Carbon Pricing Policy”, 21 October 2019,see https://www.rff.org/publications/issue-briefs/options-issuing-emissions-allowances-pennsylvania-carbon-pricing-policy/,
accessed 6 July 2020.
583 - Darrell Proctor, “Pennsylvania Move to Join RGGI May Save Nuclear Plant”, POWER Magazine, 15 March 2020,see https://www.powermag.com/pennsylvania-move-to-join-rggi-may-save-nuclear-plant/, accessed 6 July 2020.

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The future of Exelon’s nuclear fleet in Illinois remains unclear. In April 2021, a study for the statelegislature reviewed the economics and resulting policy choices for state support for Exelon’s
Byron, Dresden, Braidwood, and LaSalle reactors for the periods 2021–2025 and 2021–2030.584
The report concludes by noting that Illinois could consider a subsidy rate of US$1.00/MWh
for Byron and US$3.50/MWh for Dresden which “would ensure that 95 percent of the five-year
expected Net Present Values for each plant remains above zero at the Synapse discount ratein the Monte Carlo analysis,” noting that “a US$3.00/MWh rate would collect approximately$100 million per year from ratepayers for the two plants.” The authors recommend to Illinois
legislatures thatany subsidy for the output of the two plants should be based on each plant’s financial need.
No subsidy should be paid without demonstration of actual need. Such need could bedetermined by either actual costs and revenues or based on projected energy prices relative
to the projections developed in this analysis. This process should occur annually and shouldbe transparent and formulaic for all parties.

Given the track record and distinct lack of transparency on the part of Exelon and othernuclear utilities when seeking state subsidies, including ZECs, it is not clear that they will beable to meet these conditions.
Democratic Governor Pritzker has led efforts to pass an energy bill that would provide
US$540 million in subsidies for Exelon’s nuclear plants. But as of 1 July 2021, the bill was not
voted on before the end of the state legislature session. In a filing to the SEC, Exelon warned
that even two nuclear plants that successfully bid to provide power in the PJM auction remain
in danger of “premature retirement.” Exelon claims that this is due to “unfavorable market
rules that favor (carbon) emitting generation.”585 Braidwood-1 and -2 and LaSalle-1 and -2
would be kept in operation through May 2023 in order to “provide time for the significant
logistical and technical planning necessary to ensure a safe and orderly retirement.”586 The
Braidwood reactors have secured operational licenses to 2046 and 2047 respectively, while the
LaSalle reactors are licensed to 2042 and 2043 respectively. However, Exelon warned that early
shutdown would take place “in the event policy changes are not enacted”.587 However, thereis every possibility that either Exelon will be successful in its lobbying strategy at state leveland secure subsidies to secure continued operation of most of its Illinois fleet, or equally, thesuccessful lobbying of Congress members in Washington DC will secure Federal tax credits
and other support sufficient to avoid closure.

584 - This and following report quotes from Synapse, “Exelon Illinois Nuclear Fleet Audit Findings and Recommendations”, Preparedfor Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, 14 April 2021, see https://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/Exelon_Illinois_
Nuclear_Fleet_Audit_Report_REDACTED_21-002.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.
585 - Scott Van Voorhis, “Fate of Illinois nuclear plants in balance after 3 fail to clear PJM auction and subsidy plan stalls”, Utility Dive,
7 June 2021, op. cit.
586 - Ibidem.
587 - U.S. States Securities and Exchange Commission, “Form 8-K—Current Report”, Registrant Exelon Corporation and Exelon
Generation Company, 2 June 2021, op. cit.

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Ohio Corruption Scandal Terminates
Nuclear Subsidies Legislation

FirstEnergy’s core values and behaviors include integrity, openness, andtrust. As an organization, we are redoubling our commitment to live up tothese values and the standards that we know our stakeholders expect of us.
Steven E. Strah, FirstEnergy president and chief executive officer
22 July 2021.588

In July 2020, the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder, wasarrested by the FBI on charges of racketeering. It was alleged at the time that he and his
associates had set up a US$60 million slush fundto elect their candidates, with the money coming from one of the state’s largest electricity
companies. (...) Prosecutors contend that in return for the cash, Householder, pushed througha huge bailout of two nuclear plants and several coal plants that were losing money.589

As a result of the leadership role of Householder, in 2019, legislation House Bill 6 (HB6)
was passed and FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse and Perry reactors were granted US$1.3 billion of
taxpayer-money to support to keep their uneconomic units on the grid. The conspiracy was“likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people ofthe state of Ohio,” the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David M. DeVillers,
said in a news conference.590 Householder pleaded not guilty. In the year since, the scandal has
escalated, leading to the admission of guilt by FirstEnergy, and the termination of HB6 andnuclear subsidies.
In October 2020, when FirstEnergy was still denying its guilt, it continued its efforts toprevent further disclosures, leading Miranda Leppla, Vice President of Energy Policy for the
Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, to state, “FirstEnergy’s lack of transparency is acontinuation from its resistance to prove it even needed the bailout it received in House Bill 6,
despite requests from lawmakers during HB 6 hearings.”591
Tom Bullock, executive director of the Citizen Utility Board, warned that “Ohio consumers
have been harmed by HB 6, and the damage gets much worse on January 1 [2021] when
US$150 million [in] nuclear bailout charges kick in…FirstEnergy says it’s not complicit in alleged
HB 6 bribery, but it’s using legal maneuvers to block transparency, deny consumer refunds, andkeep nuclear bailout money. Consumers need PUCO [Public Utilities Commission] to side with
us and order FirstEnergy to cooperate.”592
588 - FirstEnergy, “FirstEnergy Reaches Agreement to Resolve Department of Justice Investigation”, 22 July 2021,
see https://firstenergycorp.com/newsroom/news_articles/firstenergy-reaches-agreement-to-resolve-department-of-justice-i.html,
accessed 12 August 2021.
589 - Justin Gillis, “Opinion—When Utility Money Talks”, The New York Times, 2 August 2020,see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/opinion/utility-corruption-energy.html, accessed 29 August 2020.
590 - Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, “Powerful Ohio Republican Is Arrested in $60 Million Corruption Scheme”, The New York Times,
21 July 2020, see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/us/larry-householder-ohio-speaker-arrested.html, accessed 29 August 2020.
591 - Kathiann M. Kowalski, “FirstEnergy fights against disclosing more details about alleged HB 6 bribery cases”, Energy News
Network, 30 October 2021, see https://energynews.us/2020/10/30/firstenergy-fights-against-disclosing-more-details-about-alleged-hb6-bribery-cases/, accessed 12 August 2021.
592 - Ibidem.

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On 16 November 2020, FBI agents raided the home of Ohio PUCO Chairman Sam Randazzo.593
He was appointed by Governor DeWine in February 2019, prior to which he was a longtime
lawyer for the utility industry. In mid-July 2021, it was disclosed that FirstEnergy admitted ina deferred prosecution agreement that it paid Randazzo US$22 million between 2010 and 2019,prior to his appointment to chair of PUCO.594 The Ohio PUCO, also in November 2020, began
an audit of FirstEnergy to see whether the company broke any laws or regulations regarding its
interactions with an ex-subsidiary while the companies pushed to secure HB6.

“FirstEnergy agreed to pay a US$230 million finefor bribing key Ohio officials”
On 29 December 2020, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered a halt to electric utilities collecting
monthly fees under HB6.595
In March 2021, FirstEnergy informed Ohio regulators that it would refuse to refund customers
US$30 million collected from revenue generated under the HB6 legislation.596 The Ohio
Consumers’ Counsel had called on the Ohio PUCO to order FirstEnergy to “remedy what
would be a miscarriage or perversion of justice” if the company was allowed to keep the rate
guarantee money. “As we see it, the PUCO or the legislature shouldn’t allow FirstEnergy towalk away from the House Bill 6 scandal with even a penny of Ohioans’ money, and certainly
not with the $30 million it charged consumers for recession-proofing,” Consumers’ Counsel
Bruce Weston said in a statement.597
On 31 March 2021, Ohio Governor DeWine signed House Bill 128, which permanently cancels
nuclear power subsidies paid under HB6.598 FirstEnergy, also on 31 March 2021, reversed its
previous position and agreed to refund US$26 million to consumers for charges it collected
through HB6.
On 22 July 2021, it was announced that FirstEnergy agreed to pay a US$230 million finefor bribing key Ohio officials in its efforts to secure the HB6 US$1-billion ratepayer-fundedbailout for two nuclear plants. The U.S. Department of Justice detailed that in court filings,
FirstEnergy had admitted thatit conspired with public officials and other individuals and entities to pay millions of dollars
to public officials in exchange for specific official action for FirstEnergy Corp.’s benefit.
FirstEnergy Corp. acknowledged in the deferred prosecution agreement that it paid millions
593 - Jeremy Pelzer, “FBI searches Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo’s home”, Cleveland.com,
16 November 2020, see https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/11/fbi-searches-public-utilities-commission-of-ohio-chairman-samrandazzos-home.html, accessed 12 August 2021.
594 - Laura A. Bischoff, “Top state regulator paid millions for part-time work, FirstEnergy agreement shows”, The Columbus
Dispatch, 2 August 2021, see https://eu.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/08/02/firstenergy-paid-sam-randazzo-big-money-work-parttime/5436419001/, accessed 12 August 2021.
595 - ABC6, “Ohio Supreme Court issues order stopping electric utilities from collecting monthly fee”, 29 December 2020,see https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/ohio-supreme-court-issues-order-stopping-electric-utilities-from-collecting-monthly-fee,
accessed 12 August 2021.
596 - Mark Gillespie, “FirstEnergy refusing to return subsidy cash to customers”, Associated Press, 20 March 2021,
see https://apnews.com/article/akron-ohio-archive-utilities-d2d8b22e574437d91b247b3e693252ef, accessed 12 August 2012.
597 - Ibidem.
598 - Jarrod Clay, “Gov. DeWine signs bill repealing parts of scandal-tainted House Bill 6”, ABC6, 31 March 2021,
see https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/gov-dewine-signs-bill-repealing-parts-of-scandal-tainted-house-bill-6,
accessed 12 August 2021

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 172of dollars to an elected state public official through the official’s alleged 501(c)(4) in returnfor the official pursuing nuclear legislation for FirstEnergy Corp.’s benefit.
The company also acknowledged that it used 501(c)(4) entities, including one it controlled,
to further the scheme because it allowed certain FirstEnergy Corp. executives and coconspirators to conceal from the public the nature, source and control of payments.
FirstEnergy Corp. further acknowledged that it paid $4.3 million dollars to a second public
official. In return, the individual acted in their official capacity to further First Energy Corp.’sinterests related to passage of nuclear legislation and other company priorities.599

The fine is the “largest criminal penalty ever collected, as far as anyone can recall, in thehistory of this office,” acting U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel said.600 However, the fine is less than aquarter of the US$1 billion in earnings in 2020, and FirstEnergy’s stock price soared after thethree-year deferred prosecution agreement was announced.
The agreement with the Justice Department details how FirstEnergy bought key Ohio public
officials—notably former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former PUCO Chairman
Sam Randazzo—with millions of dollars funneled through the dark money group Generation
Now, controlled by Householder. Between 2017 and March 2020, FirstEnergy Corp. andFirstEnergy Solutions, now called Energy Harbor, donated US$59 million to Generation Now.601
Householder led efforts to pass HB6 to bail out the nuclear plants and bankrolled a counter
campaign to stop a ballot initiative that would have challenged HB6.
With the termination of Ohio subsidies for the two reactors at Davis-Besse and Perry, itremains unclear what impact it will have on any closure. The reactors are now operated by
Energy Harbor, which was formed following the bankruptcy of FirstEnergy Solutions. The
reactors were originally scheduled to be closed in May 2020 and May 2021, respectively. With
the prospect of federal tax-credits legislation, there is a possibility both reactors will movefrom receiving state subsidies to federal support and continue to operate.

Progress Towards Securing Federal Subsidies

We’re not going to be able to achieve our climate goals if our nuclear
power plants shut down. We have to find ways to keep them operating.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
6 May 2021.602

The nuclear industry has made considerable progress during the past year to securing major
Federal level financial support which could significantly improve the profitability of a large
599 - United States Attorney Office, Southern District of Ohio, “FirstEnergy charged federally, agrees to terms of deferred prosecution
settlement”, 22 July 2021, see https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/firstenergy-charged-federally-agrees-terms-deferred-prosecutionsettlement, accessed 12 August 2021.
600 - AP, “FirstEnergy to pay $230M in settlement in Ohio bribery case”, as published on News5Cleveland, 22 July 2021,
see https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/state/firstenergy-to-pay-230m-in-settlement-in-ohio-bribery-case, accessed 12 August 2021.
601 - Laura A. Bischoff and Jessie Balmert, “FirstEnergy charged in Ohio bribery scheme, agrees to deferred prosecution settlement for$230 million”, Cincinatti Enquirer, 22 July 2021, see https://eu.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/22/fbi-us-attorney-ohio-publiccorruption-development/8052546002/, accessed 12 August 2021.
602 - C-SPAN, “Energy Department Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request”, 6 May 2021, see https://www.c-span.org/video/?511438-1/energydepartment-fiscal-year-2022-budget-request&start=1024, accessed 10 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 number of reactors in the existing U.S. nuclear fleet. Signs of increased support to the nuclear
fleet emerged during the latter stages of the 2020 Presidential campaign, including Biden’s
US$2 trillion clean energy plan, which was designed to achieve a carbon emissions-free energy
sector by 2035, and which includes keeping existing reactors in operation.
As WNISR2020 noted at the time, the plan itself was more circumspect on what it actuallymeans for continued operation of reactors in the U.S. Several legislative initiatives in Congress
have now made it clearer what support could potentially mean.
In the months following the election of Joe Biden, White House officials and newly appointed
members of Cabinet, as well as Democratic Party members of Congress, have signaled theneed to support existing nuclear reactors and to prevent further closures. On 6 May 2021, inHouse Appropriations subcommittee hearings for the Energy Department Fiscal Year 2022
Budget Request, DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated that “The DOE has not historicallysubsidized plants but I think this is a moment to consider and perhaps in the American Jobs
Plan or somewhere to make sure that we keep the current fleet active.”603
On 1 August 2021, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a near US$1 trillion infrastructure
bill, which would invest billions of dollars in transmission and grid infrastructure, newadvanced nuclear plants and current nuclear facilities, electric vehicle infrastructure, carbon
capture and other clean energy resources. The 2,700-page bill was passed by 67-32 and is toadvance to legislation.604 The vote to advance the bill included the support of 17 Republicans.
In terms of nuclear power, it allocates US$6 billion for the Department of Energy in the formof credits to be allocated to existing nuclear plants based on MWh electricity generation andto be available over a period from 2022–2026. The DOE Secretary is required to assign credits
to each reactor that applies, and there is the option to extend for a further five years to 2031,
which would bring the total to US$12 billion. It also sets aside an additional US$6 billion in
funding for microreactors, small modular reactors and advanced nuclear reactors.605
John Kotek, senior vice president of policy development and public affairs at the Nuclear
Energy Institute (NEI) called the bill “a welcome step forward,” but, “additional action must
be taken” to retain the existing fleet of nuclear power plants, including through a production
tax credit.606
In what would be a major financial gain for utilities over the coming decade, Senate Democrats
and House Democrats and Republicans are proposing S. 2291/H.R.4024, called the “ZeroEmission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021”, which would establish tax credits for
production of electricity using nuclear power at a rate of US$15/MWh.607
603 - Ibidem.
604 - Catherine Morehouse, “Bipartisan $1 trillion Senate infrastructure bill focuses on transmission, nuclear, carbon capture”,
Utility Dive, 3 August 2021, see https://www.utilitydive.com/news/bipartisan-1t-senate-proposal-focused-on-nuclear-carbon-capturetransmis/604348/, accessed 10 August 2021.
605 - United States Senate, “H.R. 3684 – To authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs,
and for other purposes”, 117th Cong., 1st Session, see https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e/a/ea1eb2e4-56bd-45f1-a2609d6ee951bc96/F8A7C77D69BE09151F210EB4DFE872CD.edw21a09.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.
606 - Catherine Morehouse, “Bipartisan $1 trillion Senate infrastructure bill focuses on transmission, nuclear, carbon capture”,

Utility Dive, 3 August 2021, op. cit.

607 - United States Senate, “S.2291–A Bill To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish a tax credit for production ofelectricity using nuclear power”, Referred to as the “Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021”, 117th Congress,
1st Session, 24 June 2021, see https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s2291/BILLS-117s2291is.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Covering the period from 2022–2031, the legislation would reduce utility tax burdens
proportional to the amount of nuclear electricity generated. Utilities eligible to apply are those
operating reactors in the deregulated (merchant) electricity market. Welcoming the efforts
of Senate and House Democrats, an industry coalition, including Westinghouse, Toshiba andFramatome, as well as the NEI and American Nuclear Society (ANS), noted that, “Federal
action is urgently needed to preserve nuclear energy, the country’s largest source of carbonfree electricity because energy markets and state and federal policies currently do not properly
value nuclear’s carbon-free power.”608
The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) reports that around half of the U.S. reactor
fleet operate in the merchant market. Analysis from the Nuclear Information Resource
Service (NIRS) reports 40 reactors in the deregulated market, but that seven of these would
likely not qualify for the credits.609 These include four reactors in New York state (FitzPatrick,
Ginna, and Nine Mile Point-1 and -2) that are already in receipt of credits under ZEC statelegislation which are at a higher rate per MWh than proposed by Congress. In addition, as
NIRS notes, the closure of Palisades in Michigan in 2022, and the two reactors at Point Beachin Wisconsin which have secured high value contracts until 2032, would exclude these frombeing eligible.610
One consequence of the Congressional efforts, if successful, would be the likely cancellation ofState level ZECs. NIRS details that eight reactors in Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey thatare currently receiving credits would likely terminate their agreement and opt for the morelucrative Federal subsidies. On the basis that 33 reactors would be able to secure credits under
the proposed legislation, NIRS calculates that the total cost could be US$4.6 billion/year or
US$45.6 billion through 2031.611
Deliberations on the Congressional legislation are set to resume from September 2021 whenboth House and Senate reconvene.

608 - ANS, BPC Action, Breakthrough Institute et al., Letter addressed to Benjamin L. Cardin, United States Senate, and toBill Pascrell, United States House of Representatives, 16 June 2021, see https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c/a/ca3d10002699-4530-89da-f1c1640b24bd/D4CC2108939EC924C226A0A322448EF0.ptc-letter-of-support-june-2021.pdf, accessed 10 August 2021.
609 - NIRS, “Crunching the Numbers: How Much Would a National Nuclear Bailout Cost?”, 3 August 2021,
see https://www.nirs.org/crunching-the-numbers-how-much-would-a-national-nuclear-bailout-cost/, accessed 10 August 2021.
610 - Ibidem.
611 - Ibidem.

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FUKUSHIMA STATUS REPORT· TEN YEARS AFTEROVERVIEW OF ONSITE AND OFFSITE CHALLENGES
Introduction
A decade has passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster began. Work to remove thespent fuel from the cooling pool of Unit 3 has finally been completed, while the work to remove
the fuel debris has not yet begun on any reactor. In April 2021, the Japanese government decided
that the contaminated water containing tritium (and other radioisotopes) would be discharged
into the ocean, which caused national and international outrage. While the decontamination
work in Fukushima Prefecture is continuing, tens of thousands of citizens remain displaced.

Onsite Challenges612
Current Status of Each Reactor
The injection of water into Fukushima Daiichi Units 1–3, where core-melt accidents took placein March 2011, is continuing. As of 1 July 2021, a total of 228 cubic meters per day were being
circulated through the Units 1–3.613 The temperature in the lower part of the reactor pressure
vessel and the containment vessel is maintained at 14–20 degrees Celsius. The temperaturein the storage pool, where the spent nuclear fuel is stored, is similar to last year at about
17‑23 degrees Celsius614 . The radiation level in the air has been decreasing little by little but
remains high in the vicinity of the buildings; for example, a dose rate of 0.75 mSv/h has been
detected near Unit 3.615 The radiation dose inside the buildings is still extremely high. As theradiation dose inside the building continues to be excessively high, it has not been possible tocarry out measurements at all locations.
The removal of spent fuel at Unit 4 was completed in December 2014. Work began in Unit 3 on
15 April 2019 and was completed on 28 February 2021, which is the first time that this task wascompleted for a reactor that suffered a core meltdown. Units 1 and 2 are still in the preparatory
stage for debris removal from the pools. According to the latest schedule announced in
612 - In this section, unless noted otherwise, the following source has been used: Secretariat of the Team for Countermeasures for
Decommissioning and Contaminated Water Treatment, “Outline of Decommissioning and Contaminated Water Management”, METI,
25 March 2021, see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/mp202103.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
613 - TEPCO Holdings, “Storage and treatment of high level radioactive accumulated water (as of July 1, 2021)”, Attachment-2,
in TEPCO, “Situation of Storage and Treatment of Accumulated Water containing Highly Concentrated Radioactive Materials
at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (507th Release)”, 28 June 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/decommission/
information/newsrelease/watermanagement/pdf/2021/watermanagement_20210628-e.pdf, accessed 19 August 2021.
614 - Secretariat of the Team for Countermeasures for Decommissioning and Contaminated Water Treatment, “福島第一原子力発電所 プラント関連パラメータ” [“Plant parameters of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant”], METI, March 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/committee/osensuitaisakuteam/2021/03/1-1.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
615 - TEPCO, “福島第一構内 サーベイマップ（2021年3月分）” [“Fukushima Daiichi Ground Survey Map (March 2021)”], March 2021
(in Japanese), see https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/data/surveymap/pdf/2021/f1-sv2-20210331-j.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

December 2019 (maintained as of March 2021), the spent fuel removal for Unit 1 will begin by
FY2027–28, and for Unit 2 by FY2024–26. Originally scheduled to begin at both reactors in
2023, spent fuel removal from all six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi is planned to be completed
by 2031.616
A decade after the Fukushima disaster began, the government is still examining how to remove
the fuel debris from Units 1 and 2 and has not even begun to look into the methodology for
Unit 3. According to the government’s medium- to long-term roadmap, the removal of fueldebris from Unit 2 was scheduled to start by the end of 2021.617 However, according to TEPCO’saction plan, the removal is “expected to be delayed by about one year due to the spread of
COVID-19.”618
In March 2021, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a report on the draft results of
its investigation and analysis of the accident.619 This report showed that the radiation dose near
the top of the containment vessel lid (shield plug) was extremely high.620 It is estimated thatCs-137 is present at about 0.1–0.2 PBq621 in Unit 1, at least 20–40 PBq in Unit 2, and 30 PBq in
Unit 3.

Contaminated Water Management
According to TEPCO, the amount of contaminated water generation has been reduced to about
140 m3/day on average in FY2020 (compared to about 540 m3/day, the level in FY2014 before
measures like an underground wall and a frozen soil barrier were implemented). The amountof groundwater and rainwater flowing into the basements of the buildings has been reduced toabout 100 m3/day (compared to about 350 m3/day, the level before measures were implemented).
In terms of contaminated water stored in over 1,000 tanks on the Fukushima Daiichi site,while concentrations of radioisotopes such as, strontium, iodine and cesium have been reduced
through the use of several Advanced Liquid Processing Systems (ALPS), the operations
have been plagued with problems. The result of which is that as of November 2020 at least
73 percent of the water was required to be processed again through ALPS in an attempt toreduce concentrations to a level permissible for discharge under Japanese regulations.622
According to TEPCO data, as of August 2021, there was a total of 69 percent or 832,900 cubic
616 - Ritsuko Shimizu, “Japan delays fuel removal from two reactors at Fukushima Daiichi”, Reuters, 27 December 2019,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-idUSKBN1YU1BF, accessed 19 August 2021; and Agency for Natural Resources
and Energy, “The Update of Fukushima Daiichi NPS”, METI, March 2021, p. 7, see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/20210304_FPCJ_METI.pdf, accessed 26 August 2021.
617 - Ibidem; and The Inter-Ministerial Council for Contaminated Water and Decommissioning Issues, “Mid-and-Long-Term Roadmap
towards the Decommissioning of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station”, 27 December 2019,see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/20191227_3.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
618 - TEPCO, “廃炉中⻑期実行プラン２０２１” [“Decommissioning medium-to-long term execution plan 2021”], 25 March 2021
(in Japanese), see https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/progress/plan/pdf/2021/20210325.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
619 - Study Group for the Analysis of the Accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, “Interim Report on theInvestigation and Analysis of the Accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: Results of the Study from September
2019 to March 2021”, Nuclear Regulation Authority, 5 March 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000345038.pdf,
accessed 3 May 2021.
620 - Measurements were carried out for Units 1, 2 and 3 in February 2017, November 2018 and November 2015 respectively.
621 - 1 PBq = 1,000 Trillion Bq.
622 - METI, “ALPS treated water – (Measures for Decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station)”, November 2020,see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/alpsqa202011.pdf, accessed 26 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 meters of water that would undergo secondary processing in ALPS.623 This is expected to takeseveral years.
At the same time, ALPS was not designed to remove radioactive tritium or carbon-14,624
After debating the handling of tritiated water from both technical and social perspectives,on 13 April 2021, the relevant ministerial meeting of the government decided to discharge
the tritiated water into the ocean. According to the basic policy, the tritiated water will be
diluted by a factor of at least 100 and will be released starting in 2023 and is expected to takeat least three decades to discharge. In attempt to reduce opposition to the plans, the Japanese
government has reached agreement that an IAEA Task Force will provide assistance to Japan
during the preparation and implementation of the planned discharges.625 Fishermen unions,
local municipalities, citizens groups and environmental organizations have consistently
opposed the government’s decision.626 Various countries, including China, South Korea andthe Pacific Island Forum (PIF), have also voiced concern and opposition to the release plan.627
Three independent United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteurs issued a joint statement
that, “The release of one million tons of contaminated water into the marine environment
imposes considerable risks to the full enjoyment of human rights of concerned populations inand beyond the borders of Japan”.628

Worker Exposure and COVID-19 Infections
As of February 2021, of the 6,822 workers involved in the decommissioning of the Fukushima
Daiichi plant, 931 were TEPCO employees and 5,891 (86 percent) were employees ofsubcontractors. The maximum cumulated effective dose of external exposure was 6.10 mSv

623 - TEPCO Holdings, “Treated Water Portal Site”, as of 19 August 2021, see https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommission/progress/
watertreatment/index-e.html, accessed 19 August 2021.
624 - Shaun Burnie, “Stemming the Tide: The reality of the Fukushima radioactive water crisis”, Greenpeace Germany,
Published by Greenpeace East Asia and Greenpeace Japan, October 2020, see https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4japan-stateless/2020/10/5e303093-greenpeace_stemmingthetide2020_fukushima_radioactive_water_crisis_en_final.pdf,
accessed 19 August 2021.
625 - Japanese Government, “東京電力ホールディングス株式会社福島第一原子力発電所における • 多核種除去設備等処理水の処分に関する基本方針（案）” [“Basic Policy on the Disposal of Water Treated by Radionuclide Removal Facilities at TEPCO’s
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (Draft)”], 13 April 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/hairo_osensui/dai5/siryou1.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021; and IAEA, “IAEA to Review and Monitor the Safety of Water Release at Fukushima Daiichi”,
Press Release, 8 July 2021, see https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/iaea-to-review-and-monitor-the-safety-of-water-releaseat-fukushima-daiichi, accessed 19 August 2021.
626 - See for example: CNIC, “We strongly protest the decision to discharge ALPS treated water into the Pacific Ocean and demand
the withdrawal of this policy”, 13 April 2021, see https://cnic.jp/english/?p=5423, accessed 19 August 2021; and JF Zengyoren, “アルプス処理水海洋放出の方針決定に強く抗議 • する ＪＦ全漁連会長声明” [“We strongly oppose the policy decision to release ALPStreated water into the ocean”], Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, 13 April 2021 (in Japanese), see https://www.zengyoren.or.jp/cmsupload/press/183/20210413seimei.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
627 - Catherine Wong, “China warns of action over Japan’s decision to dump radioactive Fukushima water into the sea”, South China
Morning Post, 13 April 2021, see https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3129322/china-warns-action-over-japansdecision-dump-radioactive; also Guo Wenrui and Liang Jun, “Japan’s ‘low credibility’ causes concerns among Asian countries on
Fukushima nuclear wastewater release”, People’s Daily Online, 14 April 2021, see http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0414/c90000-9838938.
html; and Yonhap, “S. Korea voices ‘grave concerns’ over Japan’s expected decision to release Fukushima water into sea”, 12 April 2021,
see https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210412008700325?section=national/diplomacy; and Pacific Island Forum, “Statement by Dame
Meg Taylor, Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Regarding the Japan Decision to Release ALPS Treated Water into the
Pacific Ocean”, 13 April 2021, see https://www.forumsec.org/2021/04/13/statement-by-dame-meg-taylor-secretary-general-of-thepacific-islands-forum-regarding-the-japan-decision-to-release-alps-treated-water-into-the-pacific-ocean/, all accessed 19 August 2021.
628 - UN Human Rights, “Japan: UN experts say deeply disappointed by decision to discharge Fukushima water”, Office ofthe High Commissioner for Human Rights, 15 April 2021, see https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.
aspx?NewsID=27000&LangID=E, accessed 20 August 2021.

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for TEPCO employees and 11.67 mSv for employees of subcontractors.629 According to TEPCO,
as of August 2021, 75 TEPCO employees and 140 subcontractors have been infected with
COVID-19.

Offsite Challenges
Current Status of Evacuation
As of April 2021, 35,478 residents of Fukushima Prefecture are still living as evacuees (7,093
are living within the prefecture, 28,372 are living outside the prefecture, and 13 are missing).630
The number of evacuees has decreased by about 3,000 since last year. According to Fukushima
Prefecture, the peak number of evacuees was 164,865 as of May 2012.631
In the areas where evacuation orders have been lifted, the number of people who have returnedto their hometowns hardly increased over the past year. According to a survey of five towns
conducted by the Reconstruction Agency, in Okuma Town—where the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant is located—the evacuation order was partially lifted in April 2019, but
the return rate is still only 2.5 percent (1.8 percent in 2020). Even Tomioka Town, where theevacuation order was partially lifted in April 2017, has a return rate of only 9.2 percent (7.5 in2020).632

Food Contamination
Nationwide inspections for food contamination continue, with a total of 54,412 samples
analyzed in FY2020, according to preliminary data, April 2020–February 2021, of which 127
samples exceeded the legal limits633 (157 cases in FY2019).634 In Fukushima Prefecture, 25 items
were found to have high levels, of which 24 were game meat (wild boar, bear, pheasant) and one
was an agricultural product.
The situation of food exports to foreign countries is still severe today. Of the 54 countries thatbegan imposing import restrictions (e.g. banning Japanese food without certificate of origin or
certificate of analysis for radioactivity) after the beginning of the disaster, as of March 2021,

629 - TEPCO, “福島第一原子力発電所にて放射線業務に従事した作業者の • 被ばく線量の評価状況について” [“Evaluation
situation of exposure dose of workers of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station”], 31 March 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/information/newsrelease/exposure/pdf/2021/exposure_20210331-j.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
630 - Fukushima Disaster Response Headquarters, “Immediate report on damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku-Pacific Coast
Earthquake”, Report No. 1775, 5 April 2021(in Japanese).
631 - New Fukushima Revitalization Promotion Headquarters, “Steps for Reconstruction and Revitalization in Fukushima
Prefecture”, Fukushima Prefecture, 25 August 2020, p.2, see https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/425053.pdf,
accessed 24 August 2021.
632 - Reconstruction Agency, “令和２年度 原子力被災自治体における • 住民意向調査 調査結果（概要）” [“Results of the Survey
on Residents’ Intention in the Nuclear Accident-affected Municipalities (Summary)”], 19 February 2021 (in Japanese),see https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat1/sub-cat1-4/210219_ikouchousa_zentai_gaiyou.pdf, accessed 4 May 2021.
633 - The standard value established by the MHLW: The level of radioactive cesium is 100 Bq/kg for food, 10 Bq/kg for drinking water,
50 Bq/kg for milk, and 50 Bq/kg for infant food.
634 - MHLW, “Sum up of radionuclides monitoring data reported in Japanese fiscal year 2020 (Up-to-date report from April 2020
to March 2021)”, as of March 2021, see https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/Sum_up_March_20210729.pdf,
accessed 26 August 2021.

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only 40 have lifted their restrictions (34 as of the previous fiscal year), while 14 countries/
regions including the EU, the U.K., China, and South Korea continue to impose restrictions.635

Decontamination
The decontamination work for the Special Decontamination Area of Fukushima Prefecture
under the direct control of the national government636 was completed in March 2018, and thedecontamination work for relevant municipalities including the rest of Fukushima Prefecture637
was completed in March 2017 (this decontamination work did not include the Difficult-toReturn Zones). However, the reality is that decontamination has only been conducted over asmall percentage of the overall land area contaminated.638 Meanwhile, the management of thedecontamination waste generated by these projects is now a major issue. The contaminatedsoil from the temporary storage sites639 in Fukushima Prefecture is currently being transferred
to intermediate storage facilities in eight areas. As of April 2021, 10.7 million m3 of the total
14 million m3 had been delivered (76 percent of the total amount).640
The law stipulates that the government is responsible for disposing of the waste at a final
disposal site outside Fukushima Prefecture, to be carried out by a company wholly owned by
the government, within 30 years after starting the interim storage of the waste.641 However, atpresent, the government has taken no specific action toward the final disposal of contaminatedwaste generated due to the Fukushima disaster.

Conclusion
The tenth anniversary-year since the disaster began occurred in the context of the
global COVID-19 pandemic. The Japanese government has emphasized progress made in
decommissioning and decontamination, but the reality is that Japan is still in the earlystages of managing the consequences of the accidents. Although the current overall plan fordecommissioning remains unchanged, with scheduled completion between 2041 and 2051, it is635 - Food Industry Affairs Bureau, “Status of countries and regions introduced import measures on Japanese foods after the TEPCO’s
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident”, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as of 28 March 2021,
see https://www.maff.go.jp/j/export/e_info/pdf/kisei_gaiyo_en.pdf, accessed 3 May 2021.
636 - A high dose area within a 20km radius of the power plant, located around the difficult-to-return zone.
637 - It covers all eight prefectures, including Fukushima Prefecture, except for the Special Decontamination Area managed by thegovernment.
638 - Aaron Clark, “Decade after Fukushima disaster, Greenpeace sees cleanup failure”, Bloomberg, as published by The Japan
Times, 4 March 2021, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/03/04/national/fukushima-greenpeace-radiation-health-3-11/;
Greenpeace East Asia, “Fukushima Daiichi 2011-2021: The decontamination myth and a decade of human rights violations”,
March 2021, see https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-japan-stateless/2021/03/ff71ab0b-finalfukushima2011-2020_web.pdf;
both accessed 19 August 2021.
639 - Until final disposal, facilities store removed soil, waste, incinerated ash with levels exceeding 100,000 Bq/kg, etc. that weregenerated from decontamination activities in Fukushima Prefecture.
640 - Ministry of the Environment, “輸送（搬出済）量（2015年～）” [“Interim Storage Facility”], Government of Japan, April 2021,
see http://josen.env.go.jp/chukanchozou/transportation/index.html, accessed 4 May 2021.
641 - Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, “中間貯蔵・環境安全事業株式会社法 • 平成十五年法律第四十四号”,[“Japan Environmental Storage & Safety Corporation Act”], Government of Japan, August 2015 (in Japanese), see https://elaws.e-gov.
go.jp/document?lawid=415AC0000000044, accessed 4 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 still not widely publicly debated in Japan that the feasibility of this plan is being questioned.642
The population most impacted by the disaster, the citizens of Fukushima, by majority have
low confidence in the current plans, and give the government low ratings for their handling of
the disaster until now.643 The government’s decision to discharge contaminated water into theocean has raised protests far beyond Japan. As for offsite management, the resettlement policy
has turned out a failure as the very low return rates illustrate.

HEALTH EFFECTS OF THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHINUCLEAR POWER PLANT DISASTER
Introduction
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake
and tsunami caused widespread radioactive contamination in eastern Japan. In Fukushima
Prefecture, the area up to 20 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant was designated as
an evacuation zone as the annual exposure dose was estimated to exceed 20 mSv and the area
between 20–30 km was designated as an indoor evacuation644 zone. However, residents who
were worried about radiation exposure self-evacuated from beyond the official evacuation
zone, and the number of evacuees reached more than 160,000.
Before the accident, the public exposure dose limit was 1 mSv per year, but the government
has lifted the evacuation order for areas that have been decontaminated to some degree andare estimated to entail a dose of less than 20 mSv per year. In March 2017, the government
terminated housing support for evacuees from outside the evacuation zone and encouraged
residents to return to their homes. However, estimates of the number of evacuees who havenot taken up the return option range from about 36,000 according to Fukushima Prefecture,and more than 67,000, according to local governments in the prefecture.645, 646 Most of thepeople who have returned to the evacuation zone are the elderly, and the return rate among
the younger generation concerned about the health effects of radiation exposure, particularly
for the children is less than 10 percent.647
642 - The Mainichi, “Fukushima chief: No need to extend decommissioning target”, 4 March 2021, see https://mainichi.jp/english/
articles/20210304/p2g/00m/0na/022000c; and Norihiko Kuwabara, “Radiation levels at Fukushima plant far worse than was thought”,
The Asahi Shimbun, 30 December 2020, see https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14071742; also Sato Satoshi, “Decommissioning of the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station – From Plan-A to Plan-B Now, from Plan-B to Plan-C”, Greenpeace East Asia, 4 March 2021,
see https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-japan-stateless/2021/03/20cf92ab-decomrep_final2.pdf; all accessed 19 August 2021.
643 - Noriyoshi Ohtsuki, “Fukushima poll: 74% say nuclear disaster work not promising”, The Asahi Shimbun, 24 February 2021,
see https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14216668, accessed 19 August 2021.
644 - Indoor evacuation refers to measures to stay indoors and prevent outside air from entering the room by closing windows andturning off ventilation fans and air-conditioners. After the Fukushima accidents began, the indoor evacuation zone was set at 5–30 km
from the plant.
645 - Kahoku Shimpo, “福島の避難者集計に３万人以上の差 県と市町村、手法ばらばら” [“Difference of more than 30,000 in the
total number of evacuees in Fukushima Prefectures and municipalities, methods are different”], 31 January 2021,
see https://kahoku.news/articles/20210131khn000005.html, accessed 24 August 2021.
646 - Aoki Miki, “いないことにされる私たち” [“We who are pretended not to have existed”], Asahi Shimbun Publishing, 2021, ISBN9784-02-251766-1.
647 - Tokyo Shimbun, “縮みゆく自治体 データで見る住民帰還 ＜あの日から・福島原発事故10年＞” [“Shrinking Local
Governments: A Data-Based Approach to Returning Residents—From That Day: Ten Years After the Fukushima Nuclear Accident”],
18 January 2021, see https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/79669, accessed 27 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Principles of Radiation Health Effects
Health effects of radiation are determined by the exposure dose. For example, a dose of 7
Sievert (Sv) to the whole body in a short time will kill more than 99 percent of people, and
3–4 Sv will kill about 50 percent. Exposure to 1 mSv means that an average of one radiation
beam passes through the nucleus of a cell648 that contains DNA, the blueprint of the body. A
dose of 7 Sv means that 7,000 beams penetrate the nucleus, cutting the DNA into pieces andthus killing the cells.649 Complex DNA damage may occur even when a single radiation trackpasses through a cell, and the number of damages increases in proportion to the dose650.
Mutations occur if the damage is repaired incorrectly,651 which can cause cancer.
The so-called Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model assumes that there is no thresholdfor carcinogenesis and that the risk increases linearly with dose, because DNA damage
can occur with a single radiation beam and increases with dose. The LNT model has been
adopted by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP)652, the World
Health Organization (WHO)653 , and others as it is supported by epidemiological studies andexperimentally.
Since cells that are actively dividing are more sensitive to radiation, children are significantly
more susceptible to radiation damage than adults, and within an individual, cells in organs thatare actively dividing, such as bone marrow and lymphatic cells, are more likely to be damaged
than cells in other organs.

Diseases Other Than Cancer Caused by Radiation ExposureStudies of A-bomb survivors have revealed that mortality from cardiovascular disease
increases linearly with dose.654 According to a Ukrainian government report, 25 years after the
Chernobyl accident655, there were more deaths from cardiovascular diseases than from cancer
648 - UNSCEAR, “Annex F – DNA repair and mutagenesis”, in United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation,“Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation—Volume II: Effects” UNSCEAR Report to the General Assembly, 2000.
649 - Radiation energy is orders of magnitude greater than the binding energy of the atoms (energy of chemical bonds) that makeup the DNA. For example, even the beta rays of tritium, the lowest energy form of radioactivity released from nuclear facilities, havean average energy 1,000 times greater than chemical bonds, and the beta and gamma rays of radioactive iodine and cesium have an
average energy 100,000 times greater. See John W. Gofman, “Radiation and Human Health”, Sierra Club Books, 1981.
650 - Kai Rothkamm and Markus Löbrich. “Evidence for a lack of DNA double-strand break repair in human cells exposed to very low
x-ray doses”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.100, 5057-62, 29 April 2003.
651 - When two broken ends are incorrectly connected to each other, the intervening bases are lost, resulting in the alteration of thebase sequence, leading to mutations, which can in turn cause carcinogenesis, the formation of cancer. (Nonhomologous end-joining).
See Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposures to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, “Health risks from exposure to low level ofionizing radiation”, BEIR VII Phase 2, Board on Radiation Effects Research, Division on Earth and Life Studies, U.S. National ResearchCouncil of the National Academies, National Academies Press, 2006, see https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11340/health-risks-fromexposure-to-low-levels-of-ionizing-radiation, accessed 2 June 2021.
652 - ICRP, “The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection”, International Commission
on Radiological Protection, ICRP Publication 103, Vol. 37, Nos. 2–4, 2007, see https://www.icrp.org/publication.asp?id=ICRP%20
Publication%20103, accessed 24 August 2021.
653 - WHO, “Health risk assessment from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami – Based on apreliminary dose estimation”, World Health Organization, 11 August 2013, see https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241505130,
accessed 24 August 2021.
654 - Yukiko Shimizu, Kazunori Kodama et al., “Radiation exposure and circulatory disease risk: Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb
survivor data, 1950–2003”, BMJ, 14 January 2010.
655 - Ministry of Ukraine of Emergencies, “Twenty-five Years after Chernobyl Accident: Safety for the Future”, National Report ofUkraine, 2011.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 (see also Chapter on Chernobyl – 35 Years After the Disaster Began). Cataracts are a definite
effect of radiation and increase linearly with dose from less than 100 milli-gray to 2 gray656.
Non-neoplastic diseases with high incidence among adult evacuees from Chernobyl included
thyroiditis, neurological diseases, digestive diseases, and urological diseases. Immunity
is carried out by cells of the myeloid and lymphoid lineages, and bone marrow cells andlymphocytes, are highly radiosensitive, thus exposure increases immune system diseases.

Survey on Health Effects
The following is an overview of the health effects that have been revealed in
Fukushima Prefecture, the prefecture most affected by the 3/11 disaster.

Thyroid Radiation Dosimetry and Potassium Iodine
According to the Japanese Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Guide657, the Nuclear Safety
Commission (NSC) was supposed to issue an order to take iodine if the dose to the thyroid
gland reached 13,000 counts per minute (cpm),658 which is equivalent to 100 mSv. It was alsodecided that the person should be decontaminated in that case. Therefore, evacuees from theevacuation area had to undergo a contamination test, and if the contamination was above thelimit, they had to be decontaminated before they could enter the shelter.
Many of the residents from the evacuation area were contaminated at levels exceeding
13,000 cpm, but it was very cold at that time and there was not enough hot water todecontaminate people or provide clothes to change for all of them. This is why thedecontamination standard was raised to 100,000 cpm. As far as records are available, 102
residents exceeded 100,000 cpm and 900 were in the range of 13,000–100,000 cpm.659
However, no iodine tablets were systematically distributed to the population. These initial
measurements were not used for exposure-dose estimation, and it was concluded that no one
was exposed to more than 100 mSv.
A fax the NSC had sent to the medical team of the Local Nuclear Emergency Response locatedin the evacuation zone Headquarters (NERHQ) went missing. That fax reportedly contained
instructions to call on the general public to take iodine tablets. The Local NERHQ did notreceive the fax, so it did not issue any instructions to the public. The governor of Fukushima
Prefecture was also supposed to give the order, but he was not aware of it. In the absenceof instructions from NERHQ or the governor, the heads of the municipalities were allowed
to issue their own orders to take iodine tablets, but only four towns issued such orders. As aresult, only about 10,000 residents took the iodine tablets even though Fukushima Prefecture

656 - One gray (Gy) is defined as the absorption of one joule of radiation energy per kilogram of matter. It serves as the basis for the
calculation of the radiation dose given in sieverts (Sv).
657 - NSC, “原子力災害対策マニュアル”, Partially Revised in 2019 (in Japanese), see https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/genshiryoku_
bousai/kanji/dai13/siryou2.pdf, accessed 27 August 2021; and IAEA, “The Fukushima Daiichi Accident–Technical Volume 3–Emergency
Preparedness and Response”, 2015, see https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/AdditionalVolumes/P1710/Pub1710-TV3Web.pdf, accessed 24 August 2021.
658 - cpm (counts per minute): The number of rays (beta or gamma rays) that pass through the detector of a Geiger counter in

one minute. 100 cpm is equal to 100 rays per minute.

659 - Study2007, “見捨てられた初期被曝” [“Abandoned initial radiation exposure”], Iwanami Science Library, 2015.

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had ample stockpiles.660 In July 2020, the closed minutes of the Fukushima Medical University
Disaster Response Headquarters were made public, revealing that the distribution of iodine
tablets to children in Hamadori and Nakadori had been discussed, and by 19 March 2011, thetablets had been distributed on a municipal basis. However, no instructions were given to takethe iodine tablets because Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, who later became an advisor on radiation
health risk management, had suggested that there was no need to take them.661

The Fukushima Prefectural Health Management Survey
and the Thyroid Examination Program
Commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), Fukushima Prefecture decided to
conduct a prefectural residents’ health survey. To estimate the exposure dose, information on
individual behavior from the occurrence of the accidents to the end of June 2011 was collectedby questionnaire, and the external exposure dose was estimated based on the behavioral
records and environmental radiation dose.
The response rate of the questionnaire was 27.7 percent (568,632 persons) by March 2020. The
effective doses due to the accidents were below 1 mSv in 62.2 percent of the cases, 1–2 mSv in
31.6 percent, 2–3 mSv in 5.5 percent, 3–4 mSv in 0.3 percent, and 4–5 mSv in 0.1 percent, withthe maximum dose being 66 mSv, the mean value 0.9 mSv, and the median 0.6 mSv. It was
decided to conduct a detailed survey on thyroid, mental health, lifestyle, and pregnant andnursing mothers.
The prefectural government outsourced everything from the planning of the thyroid
examination to the analysis of the results to Fukushima Medical University (FMU). About
380,000 children at the age of 18 or younger (including in utero) at the time of the accident are
eligible for thyroid examinations. Examinations are carried out every two years until the age of20, and every five years thereafter using ultrasound equipment. If a nodule of 5.1 mm or more indiameter is found in the primary examination, a secondary examination is recommended, andif necessary, a fine-needle aspiration cytology662 is performed. When the cells are malignant
or suspected to be malignant, the case is reported by the FMU to the Fukushima HealthManagement Survey Oversight Committee (FHMSOC), the advisory body of Fukushima
Prefecture, and made public at the same time.

High incidence of thyroid cancer and a flawed examination program
In July 2021, it was reported that a total of 260 malignant or suspected malignant cases
were detected: 219 underwent surgery, and 218 were diagnosed as cancer (see Table 7). Since
pediatric thyroid cancer is an extremely rare disease, usually diagnosed in one or two cases per
million people per year, already in 2016, the Oversight Committee admitted that the number of
660 - NAIIC, “The Official Report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission”, Fukushima Nuclear
Accident Independent Investigation Commission, National Diet of Japan, 2012, see https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3514606,
accessed 8 June 2021; and IAEA, “The Fukushima Daiichi Accident–Technical Volume 3–Emergency Preparedness and Response, 2015,
op. cit.
661 - Mai Asada, “浮かび上がる３.11後の安定ヨウ素剤をめぐる対応と県民健康調査の出発点 -福島県立医大の非公開議事録から” [“The post 3.11 response to stable iodine and the starting point of the prefectural health survey - From the closed minutes ofFukushima Prefectural Medical University”], 科学, Vol. 90, 2020, pp. 612–619.
662 - When a nodule is found in an organ, such as the thyroid gland, a piece of tissue is aspirated with a fine needle and cells are
examined under a microscope to see if it is malignant or not.

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there were 46 patients whose prior examination results from two years earlier were in the A1
category, i.e. no detectable ultrasound findings. This suggests that thyroid cancer grew fromundetectable to at least 5.1 mm within two years, indicating a fast growth rate.
Table 7 – Thyroid Cancers Identified in the Fukushima Prefectural Health Management Survey

Malignant orsuspected

Round 1
(FY2011–2013)

Round 2
(FY2014–2015)

Round 3
(FY2016–2017)

Round 4
(FY2018–2019)For age 25(FY2017–202)

Total

116

71

31

33

9

260

Round 1 results:
A1: 33
A2: 32
B: 5
Not examined: 1

Round 2 results:
A1: 7
A2: 14
B: 7
Not examined: 3

Round 3 results:
A1: 6
A2: 18
B: 6
Not Examined: 3

Round 4 results:

Previous Round
Results

A2:2
B:2
Not Examined: 5

Male / Female

39 / 77

32 / 39

13 / 18

14 / 19

2/7

Age as of 3/11

6–18

5–18

5–16

0–12

6–18

(Average Age)(14.9±2.6)(12.6±3.2)(9.6±2.9)(7.9±2.9)(17.1±0.7)

102

55

29

27

6

219

PTC: 100
Poorly differentiated TC: 1
Benign nodule: 1

PTC: 54
Other type of TC: 1

PTC: 29

PTC: 27

PTC: 5
FTC: 1

Confirmed asTC:
218

300,472(81.7%)

270,540(71.0%)

217,921(64.7%)

183,298(62.3%)

7,621(8.7%)

Confirmed
Histologic TypeParticipants(Participation rate)

Sources: FHMSOC, July 2021664

Notes:
TC: Thyroid Cancer; PTC: Papillary Thyroid Cancer; FTC: Follicular Thyroid Cancer
A1: No nodule / cyst - A2: Nodules ≤ 5.0mm or cysts ≤ 20mm - B: Nodules ≥ 5.1mm or cysts ≥ 20.1mm
FY: Fiscal Year
Participation Rate: Number of participants/target population

In March 2017, it was discovered that the thyroid examination program planned by the
Fukushima Medical University (FMU) was flawed. This was revealed by the 3.11 Fund forChildren with Thyroid Cancer (FCTC), a non-profit organization that supports children who
have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer following the disaster. If a case is not diagnosed withmalignancy or suspected malignancy directly during the secondary examination yet requires acloser observation, the patient is then transferred to a “clinical” follow-up, which is considered“ordinary” medical care utilizing national health insurance. It came to light that the patients
who were diagnosed with cancer during this follow-up period, outside the framework of the
Fukushima Health Management Survey, were not reported back to the Oversight Committee.
In response to criticism that this would not give an accurate number of the affected people,
663 - FHMSOC, “県民健康調査における中間取りまとめ” [“Interim Report on Thyroid Examination in the Prefectural Health
Survey”], Fukushima Health Management Survey Oversight Committee, March 2016, see https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal/
kenkocyosa-kentoiinkai.html, accessed 8 June 2021.
664 - FHMSOC, “第42回「県民健康調査」検討委員会”, 42nd Fukushima Health Management Survey Oversight Committee,
Fukushima Prefecture, 26 July 2021, see https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal/kenkocyosa-kentoiinkai-42.html,
accessed 20 August 2021.

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FMU announced in July 2018 eleven additional cancer cases as of June 2017, but these consisted
only of patients who had been operated on at FMU. It is now known that there are 19 such
“unreported” cases as of December 2018, but no further effort has been made to update theunreported data. In addition to these 19 patients, the Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer
is aware of 18 patients who were not covered by the survey. The age, gender, and region of
the 19 people were not disclosed, and it is uncertain if there is any overlap with the 18 people
known to the Fund. If there is no overlap, FMU is analyzing the causal relationship between
exposure and thyroid cancer while excluding 12.6 percent of the patients.

Thyroid radiation dose and causal relationship analysis
between radiation dose and thyroid cancer incidence
The measurement of children’s thyroid radiation doses was conducted under the direction of
the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Despite the fact that thehalf-life of radioactive iodine-131 is eight days, measurements started only about two weeks
after the release events, and only a total of 1,080 children665 were measured at three locations
beyond 30 km distance from the site. At all locations the environmental radiation levels were
high. Thyroid exposure dose should have been the thyroid dose minus the air dose666, but in all
locations, the dose at the shoulder of the clothing was subtracted from the measured thyroid
dose. In case of a negative value, the exposure dose was assumed to be zero. The results showed
no exposure of more than 100 mSv, so no further measurements were made.
In addition, a professor at Hirosaki University started conducting his own measurements,
but the Fukushima Prefectural Government stopped him, arguing that it would make thepopulation feel uneasy.667
The causal relationship between exposure and thyroid cancer has been analyzed for the
first and second rounds of the survey. The exposure doses used in the FMU analysis were
estimated based on the contamination level of the affected people’s residential areas measured
from aircraft at the end of March 2011, which were classified into four areas in the order ofdescending doses: the Evacuation zone (13 municipalities), Nakadori, Hamadori and the Aizu
region.
In the first round of analysis, no correlation between the level of contamination of the area andthe thyroid cancer incidence was established, so the Oversight Committee announced that thehigh incidence of thyroid cancer was unlikely to be caused by radiation.
In the second round of analysis, the results correlated with the level of contamination(see Figure 37–A). After these results were reported, FMU changed the regional classificationaccording to the radiation dose estimated by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the
Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), as shown in Figure 37–B, and re-analyzed the results

665 - About 370,000 children were eligible for thyroid examination in Fukushima prefecture.
666 - Niiyama Mamayuki, “川俣町公民館での3月28日の甲状腺サーベイについて” [“Thyroid Survey at Kawamata Town Public Hallon 28–30 March”], Expert Meeting Regarding the Status of Health Management of Residents Following the Accident at Tokyo ElectricPower Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan, 2014 (in Japanese),see https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/rhm/conf/conf01-03.html, accessed 8 June 2021.
667 - NAIIC, “The Official Report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission”, National Diet of Japan,
2012, op. cit.

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by dividing the patients into two groups: those aged 6-14 years and those aged 15 years andolder, excluding, without explanation, one 5-year-old child.
As shown in Figure 37–B, under these assumptions, no dose-proportional increase of thyroid
cancer was identified. On the basis of this result, FMU and the Oversight Committeeannounced that “no association between the thyroid cancers and exposure can be recognized”,
ignoring the regional differences demonstrated in Figure 37–A. In addition, the result showing
a decreasing cancer incidence rate with increasing radiation dose among those over 15 years ofage raises questions about the analytical method, but no explanation was provided.668
Figure 37 · Classification of contaminated areas and grouping of patients in causal relationship analysis

Sources: Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer, FHMSOC, 2021669

Notes:• The Odds ratio is a statistical measure of the likelihood of an event occurring in two groups. An odds ratio of 1 in group A and group B means that the
number of people in group A and group B with thyroid cancer is the same, group A/B greater than 1 means that more people in group A have the disease, andgroup B less than 1 means that fewer people have the disease.
• The segmentation shown in Figure B corresponds to the exposure range of 6–14-year-old children.

668 - Fukushima Prefecture, “市町村別UNSCEAR推計甲状腺吸収線量と悪性ないし悪性疑い発見率との関連” [“Association
between UNSCEAR-estimated absorbed thyroid doses by city and detection rates of malignant or suspected”], The 35th Meeting of theFHMSOC, see https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/330129.pdf, accessed 25 August 2021.
669 - Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer, “Thyroid Examinations in Fukushima Prefecture after the TEPCO Nuclear Accident”,
March 2021, see https://www.311kikin.org/english/nuclear-accident-thyroid-cancer/article03/, accessed 25 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

The Oversight Committee points to the possibility of over-diagnosis as the cause of thehigh incidence, suggesting ultrasound examination diagnosed many cancers that will not beclinically diagnosed or linked to death in the future. However, over-diagnosis has been ruledout by surgeons who have performed most of the surgeries based on their surgical findings.670
The results of the analysis by researchers other than FMU using the data published by theOversight Committee showed that there was a causal relationship with exposure.671 The
difference in the analytical methodology is that the first and second rounds were combined
and analyzed, or the regional classification was changed or both. The UNSCEAR 2020 report672
does not mention the “unreported” patients, but uncritically evaluates the paper published by
FMU and criticizes the results of other papers.

Reports on the Nuclear Hazard Impact Study from
the Ministry of the Environment673
Survey on health effects of radiation as partof the Nuclear Hazard Impact Study ProjectTo examine the impact of the 3/11 disaster on disease and mortality trends, the Ministry of theEnvironment has set up a comparative survey of the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases,
lifestyle-related diseases, congenital abnormalities, and suicides between pre-3/11 and post-3/11
situations in Fukushima, in seven additional prefectures with partially contaminated areas(Iwate, Miyagi, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, and Chiba), and Fukushima’s neighboring
prefectures of Yamagata and Niigata.674
Site-specific cancer-incidence and mortality rates in these 10 prefectures have been reported.
While mortality rates have continued to decrease and morbidity rates have remained flat ordecreased in all sites, incidence rates in Fukushima Prefecture seem to be on the rise since 2012
for thyroid, cervical, prostate, and breast cancer. However, the increase in morbidity from 2011
to 2012 in several sites in Fukushima Prefecture may be due to voluntary screening visits.675
670 - Shinichi Suzuki, “Surgical Treatment of Pediatric Thyroid Cancer in Japan” [“日本における小児・若年者の甲状腺がん診療”],
Presented at the Second International Symposium of the Radiation Medical Science Center for Fukushima Health Management Survey,
Fukushima Medical University, 2–3 February 2020 (in English and Japanese), see http://kenko-kanri.jp/en/news/2nd_intl_symposium_
report_published.html, accessed 8 June 2021.
671 - Toshihide Tsuda, Akiko Tokinobu et al., “Thyroid Cancer Detection by Ultrasound Among Residents Ages 18 Years and Younger
in Fukushima, Japan 2011 to 2014”, Epidemiology, Vol.27, Issue 3, May 2016, pp. 316–322, see https://journals.lww.com/epidem/
Fulltext/2016/05000/Thyroid_Cancer_Detection_by_Ultrasound_Among.3.aspx, accessed 25 August 2021; and Toshiko Kato,“Area Dose Response of Prevalent Childhood Thyroid Cancers after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident”, ClinicalOncology & Research, Volume 2(6): 7-7, December 2019; also Hidehiko Yamamoto, Keiji Hayashi and Hagen Scherb, “Association
between the detection rate of thyroid cancer and the external radiation dose-rate after the nuclear power plant accidents inFukushima, Japan”, Medicine, 96, 37, September 2019; and Hiroshi Toki, Takahiro Wada et al., “Relationship between environmental
radiation and radioactivity and childhood thyroid cancer found in Fukushima health management survey”, Scientific Reports, Vol. 10,
2020.
672 - UNSCEAR, “UNSCEAR 2020 Report: Sources, effects and risks of ionizing radiation”, 2020,see https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications.html, accessed 8 June 2021.
673 - See the Reports: Ministry of the Environment, “放射線健康管理・健康不安対策事業（放射線の健康影響に係る研究調査事
業）報告書”, Government of Japan, Undated (in Japanese; only abstracts are in English), see https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/rhm/reports.
html, accessed 8 June 2021.
674 - Yamagata and Niigata are also partially contaminated. Therefore, this was not a comparison between contaminated and noncontaminated areas.
675 - Matsuda Tomohiro, “福島県内外での疾病動向の把握に関する調査研究—がん死亡・罹患の動向把握 2020FY”, National
Cancer Center, Center for Public Health Sciences, 2020 (in Japanese), see http://www.env.go.jp/chemi/R2_4_sobue_3.pdf,
accessed 8 June 2021.

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In terms of diseases other than cancer, deaths from acute myocardial infarction (heart attack)increased by 10-20 percent in Fukushima Prefecture in 2011 for both men and women in theage groups of 40-69, and 70 and over. Despite a downward trend thereafter, it remained highest
among the 10 prefectures until the final year of survey (2015). Within Fukushima Prefecture, inMarch 2011, cardiac-related deaths were the highest in the evacuation areas and decreased in
the partial and non-evacuation areas, in that order.676
Insurance billing for heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes among people aged 40 and older
has increased significantly in Fukushima Prefecture for both men and women since 2011. The
rate of metabolic syndrome677 is around 14.5 percent nationwide, but amongst people displaced
from the evacuation zone, the rate increased from 15.8 percent in 2010 to 18.1 percent in 2011.
In 2017, it had gone up to 20.7 percent, which remains the highest in the prefecture. There may
be an effect of radiation exposure, but it remains uncertain because the doses have not been
examined. The evacuees have lost their jobs, their families have been split up, and they havebeen forced to live in poor conditions in temporary housing, so it is possible that their suddenchange in lifestyle has affected them.
The incidence of congenital anomalies in Fukushima Prefecture is reported to be the same as
the national average.
According to the White Paper on Suicide and Prevention678 the number of suicides in Japan had
been decreasing nationwide since 2009 but increased in 2011 in the prefectures most affectedby 3/11. In 2011, the number of suicides per million citizens was 13.1 in Iwate, 2.4 in Miyagi, 0.3 inIbaraki and 5 in Fukushima. In 2012, the numbers began to decline in most prefectures and,in 2019, reached 2.5 in Iwate, 0.4 in Miyagi, zero in Ibaraki but increased to 6.5 in Fukushima.
The nine-year total is 53 in Iwate, 57 in Miyagi, one in Ibaraki and 115 in Fukushima. Within
Fukushima Prefecture, the rate increased the most amongst people displaced from theevacuation areas and remains the highest through 2019.
The number of deaths and missing persons due to the earthquake and tsunami is 1,466 and1,275 respectively in Fukushima, compared to 8,745 and 6,674 in Miyagi, and 4,243 and 3,479
in Iwate679. On the other hand, the total number of disaster-related deaths680 in the nine and ahalf years after the earthquake was 2,319 in Fukushima compared to 469 in Iwate and 929 inMiyagi.681
676 - Imano Hironori, “福島県内外での疾病動向の把握に関する調査研究(分担)—循環器疾患とその危険因子に関する県単位での動向把握” [“Cardiovascular disease trends in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures before and after the Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident”], Osaka University, 2020 (in Japanese), see http://www.env.go.jp/chemi/R2_4_sobue_2.pdf,
accessed 8 June 2021.
677 - Metabolic syndrome is a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension) and obesity.
678 - Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, “自殺対策白書” [“White Paper on Suicide Prevention”], 2019 (in Japanese),see https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei_hakusho/hakusho/, accessed 8 June 2021.
679 - Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, “東日本大震災地震と津波の被害状況 [Great East Japan Earthquake andTsunami Damage Report]”, aff, May 2011, see https://www.maff.go.jp/j/pr/aff/1105/spe1_01.html, accessed 25 August 2021.
680 - Disaster-related death: A death that is not directly caused by a disaster, but occurs during or after evacuation, and for which a
causal relationship to the disaster is recognized. This includes death by suicide, worsening of chronic diseases due to reduced accessto medical care (loss of hospital functions, difficulty in visiting hospitals), health impairment due to prolonged and severe evacuation
environment and loss of livelihood, etc.
681 - Reconstruction Agency, “東日本大震災における震災関連死の死者数—（令和 3 年 3 月 31 日現在調査結果）” [“Number ofdeaths related to earthquake in the Great East Japan Earthquake—(Survey Results as of March 31, 2021”], as of March 2021, Updated
June 2021, see https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20210630_kanrenshi.pdf, accessed 29 August 2021; andReconstruction Agency, “震災関連死の死者数等について” [“Disaster-related death”], Various Reports (in Japanese),see https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20140526131634.html, accessed 25 August 2021.

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Health Problems of Nuclear Power Plant Workers
Of 24,832 workers who worked on the accident site during the six months following theinitial accidents, the maximum exposure dose was 679 mSv, and 174 workers (0.7 percent)are documented to have been exposed to more than 100 mSv. The average exposure dose was
12.4 mSv682,683 . However, reliability of these values is questionable because the radiation doses
immediately after the accident were only measured in groups due to the lack of individual
dosimeters.684
The Study Group on Long-Term Healthcare of Workers at the TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear
Power Plant685 has been established to conduct a health survey of 20,000 workers, but only
35 percent of the workers have responded to the survey. Most of the workers are employedby subcontractors, so they have to take time off work in order to be included in the survey
and receive regular health checkups686. In the ten years since the accidents, no coherent healthsurvey report on workers has been released.
An additional low-dose external and internal exposure has been incurred from thedecontamination work triggered by the 20-mSv return policy as well as the work associatedwith handling, shipment, and storage of millions of cubic-meters of the contaminated soil
which have been removed from farmland and residential areas and even reused for roadbed
construction, embankments, etc.687 This poses a major health issue with its effects yet to be
known.

Conclusion
Japan has been under a state of emergency for the 10 years since the Fukushima disasterbegan, but nobody has officially taken responsibility for the events. Residents who evacuatedto various areas have filed more than 30 lawsuits against TEPCO and the Japanese government
for compensation for damages caused by the evacuation (see Section on Judicial Decisions on
Damages and Criminal Liability for the Fukushima Nuclear Accidents). While there is no doubt

682 - MHLW, “東電福島第一原発作業員の” [“TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Worker Study group on long-term
health management, etc. Report”], Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, 1 May 2015 (in Japanese), see https://www.mhlw.go.jp/
file/06-Seisakujouhou-11200000-Roudoukijunkyoku/0000191126.pdf, accessed 25 August 2021; and further reports see MHLW, “
東京電力福島第一原子力発電所における緊急作業従事者等の長期的健康管理” [“Long-term health management of emergency
workers at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station”], Undated, see https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/
koyou_roudou/roudoukijun/anzen/fukushima/index.html, accessed 9 July 2021.
683 - The average cumulative dose for 10 years for nuclear workers in Japan is 13.8mSv. Radiation Effects Association, “低線量放射線による – 人体への影響に関する疫学的調査 （第V期調査 平成 22 年度～平成 26 年度）”, Radiation Epidemiological Study, Fifth
Study Report, March 2015 (in Japanese), see http://www.rea.or.jp/ire/english/, accessed 9 July 2021.
684 - NAIIC, “The Official Report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission”, National Diet of Japan,
2012, op. cit.
685 - MHLW, “Expert Meeting on the Long-term Healthcare of Workers at the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Plant—Report”, September 2011, see https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/workers/tepco/lhc/pr_110926_a02.pdf,
accessed 25 August 2021.
686 - NHK, “原発事故・7年後の「英雄たち」1万2000人の作業員が健康調査に応じない理由” [“Reason why 12,000 ‘hero’ workers
do not respond to health surveys seven years later”], 12 March 2018 (in Japanese), see https://www.nhk.or.jp/gendai/kiji/084/,
accessed 9 July 2021.
687 - Ministry of the Environment, “飯舘村長泥地区における再生利用実証事業” [“Recycling Demonstration Project in Iitate Village,
Nagadoro District”], Updated August 2021 (in Japanese), see http://josen.env.go.jp/chukanchozou/facility/recycling/project_iitate/,
accessed 25 August 2021.

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about cancer rates, especially thyroid cancer, dozens of times above national average, TEPCO
and the Japanese government keep denying any causal link with the events of 3/11.
As government witnesses, 17 experts including Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, submitted a joint
opinion in 2016 that stated that health effects below 100 mSv could not be proven.688 Several
co-authors of this joint opinion are now in charge of the Environment Ministry’s study on thehealth effects and disease trends due to 3/11.689
Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, who a few days after 3/11 said that “The effects of radiation do not
actually come to people who are smiling and laughing. It comes to those who are crying andworrying”690, as Director General of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences now heads
the Core Center for coordinating and guiding four Advanced Radiation Emergency Medical
Support Centers691. Thus, the same experts that have been downplaying post-accidental lowdose exposure risks today hold key positions that drive current radiation protection policies.
These circumstances have contributed to the increasingly widespread perception that the riskof low-dose exposure would be unprovable in the Fukushima case—despite clear evidence
such as the high incidence of childhood thyroid cancer.

ESTIMATED COSTS OF FUKUSHIMA DISASTER:OFFICIAL AND INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENTS
Introduction
Ten years after the catastrophic accidents happened at Tokyo Electric Power
Company (TEPCO)’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the full picture of theconsequences remains unclear. However, it is important to estimate how much the disasterwill cost to understand the full range of impacts. This chapter attempts to provide a best
estimate based on the methodology and assumptions developed by the independent thinktank Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER) in two recent reports.692, 693 The total costsof the Fukushima accident considered here include: decommissioning of Fukushima reactors,
treatment and disposal of contaminated water, final disposal of radioactive waste, andcompensation to victims of the accident as well as to the local community, which is broader
than the government estimate. Please note that the cost estimate does not include indirect
688 - The opinion article submitted to the Kyoto District Court on 26 October 2016 has not been published online.
689 - Ministry of the Environment, “放射線健康管理・健康不安対策事業（放射線の健康影響に係る研究調査事業）報告書”,
Government of Japan, Undated (in Japanese; only abstracts are in English), see https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/rhm/reports.html,
accessed 27 August 2021.
690 - Shunichi Yamashita, then Fukushima Prefecture Radiation Health Risk Management Advisor and Vice-President of Fukushima
Medical University, Lecture, 2011, see https://www.facebook.com/565918463587729/videos/570098366503072/, accessed 14 June 2021.
Note: intervention starts at about 30 min.
691 - National Institute for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, “National Institute of Radiological Sciences”, Undated,
see https://www.qst.go.jp/site/carem/, accessed 10 June 2021.
692 - JCER, “Accident Cleanup Costs Rising to 35-80 trillion yen in 40 years: Considering the postponing of decommissioning with
‘Confinement-managing’ scenario as a possible option. Urgent need for measures to manage contaminated water”, Japan Center for
Economic Research, 3 July 2019, see https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/accident-cleanup-costs-rising-to-35-80-trillion-yen-in-40-years,
accessed 10 May 2021.
693 - JCER, “Accident Cleanup Costs May Rise to 50-70 Trillion yen: It’s Time to Examine legal liquidation of TEPCO”, 7 March 2017,see https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/accident-cleanup-costs-may-rise-to-50-70-trillion-yen, accessed 10 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 costs such as: costs to replace nuclear generation due to the accident, additional costs due toearly decommissioning, lost value of utility stocks etc. Although there is still much uncertainty
in the assumptions, it is useful to consider an independent cost assessment. The purpose is toinform the public and policy makers of the scale of the disaster through critical analysis of thegovernment estimates done in 2016 and in 2021.

Estimates by the Government in 2016 and 2021
The earliest cost estimate of the Fukushima accident was done by the TEPCO Management
and Finance Investigation Committee set up after the accident in 2011. The report, publishedon 3 October 2011, estimated that total economic costs will be ¥5.7 trillion (US$202174 billion).
The breakdown of the cost estimate was: decommissioning ¥1.2 trillion (US$15.6 billion)
and compensation ¥4.5 trillion (US$58.6 billion), including a one-time compensation of¥2.6 trillion (US$34 billion) and continuous compensation of ¥1.9 trillion (US$25 billion). Thisestimate does not include any expenses for decontamination nor any costs of final disposal ofradioactive waste.694“Government estimates are neither complete nor do they appear
reliable, as their methodologies are not transparent for analysis.”
A 2014-estimate increased 55 percent over the initial 2011-assessment to ¥11.6 trillion(US$115 billion) with the following breakdown: decommissioning ¥2 trillion (US$19.8 billion),
decontamination ¥2.5 trillion (US$24 billion), interim storage facilities for contaminated soil
¥1.1 trillion (US$10billion), compensation ¥6 trillion (US$59.3 billion)695.
The third 2016-cost estimate was elaborated by a new Committee for Reforming TEPCO andOvercoming 1F [Fukushima Daiichi] Challenges established by the Japanese Government.
The total estimated cost was ¥22 trillion (US$206 billion), and its breakdown is the following:
decommissioning ¥8 trillion (US$75 billion), compensation ¥8 trillion (US$75 billion),
decontamination 6 trillion (US$56 billion)696.
On 13 July 2021, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) released its latest costestimates for various power generation sources, including nuclear power.697 The total power
generating costs now include so-called “government administration costs” which correspond to
public expenditures on nuclear power and were estimated to be ¥23.8 trillion (US$224 billion).
The report also contains a new estimate of the accident costs. Other costs were slightly
modified but remained close to the 2016 data (see Table 8).
694 - TEPCO Management and Finance Investigation Committee, “委員会報告” [“The Committee Report”], METI, 3 October 2011
(in Japanese), see http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/keieizaimutyousa/dai10/siryou1.pdf, accessed 10 May 2021.
695 - NHK News, “震災３年 原発事故の損害額１１兆円超に” [“3 years after the earthquake, total cost of the nuclear accident
will reach over 11 trillion yen”], 22 March 2014 (in Japanese), see http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20140311/1516_
songaigaku.html, accessed 10 May 2021.
696 - Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F Challenges, “Recommendations for Reforming TEPCO”, METI,
20 December 2016.
697 - Power Generation Cost Analysis Working Group, “基本政策分科会に対する—発電コスト等の検証に関する報告” [“Reporton Power Generation Costs etc. to the Basic Policy Committee”], Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, METI, 13 July 2021
(in Japanese), see https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/committee/council/basic_policy_subcommittee/2021/045/045_005.pdf,
accessed 20 July 2021.

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Table 8 – Summary of Government Estimates of Fukushima Disaster Costs 2012–2021(in US$2021 Billion)
2011

2014

2016

2021

Decommissioning

15.6

19.8

75.1

75.0

Decontamination

NA

35.6

56.3

52.5

Compensation

58.6

59.3

75.1

74.0

Others

NA

NA

NA

21.6

Total

74.3

114.7

206.5

223.1

Sources: TEPCO Management and Finance Investigation Committee, 2011;
NHK News, 2014, The Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F Challenges, 2016 and METI, 2021.698

However, these government estimates are neither complete nor do they appear reliable, as
their methodologies are not transparent for analysis. Apparently, they are based on informal
hearings or on preliminary analysis based on limited sources of information.699
As Table 8 shows, the 2016 estimate of US$ 206.5 billion is almost the double of the previous
one and close to three times the original estimate, and the government admitted for the firsttime that some of the costs will be paid for by the Japanese taxpayer.
Table 9 – Government Cost Sharing Scheme as of 2016 (in percent)Decommissioning

TEPCO

Other
Utilities

Independent
Power Producers

Tax

Total

100.0

0

0

0

100

Decontamination

48.5

48.5

2.9

0

100

Compensation

66.7

0

0

33.3

100

Total

71.9

18.0

1.1

9.0

100

Sources: The Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F Challenges, “Recommendations for Reforming TEPCO”, 20 December 2016

Table 9 summarizes the cost-sharing scheme of the Fukushima disaster costs as planned by
the government in 2016. Although TEPCO will share more than 70 percent of the total cost,it became clear for the first time that 9 percent of the total cost could be charged to Japanesecitizens through taxes. This raised more questions about the government estimates, andindependent cost assessments appear indispensable.

698 - TEPCO Management and Finance Investigation Committee, “委員会報告” [“The Committee Report”], 3 October 2011,
op. cit.; and Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F Challenges, “Recommendations for Reforming TEPCO”, METI,
20 December 2016; also Power Generation Cost Analysis Working Group, “基本政策分科会に対する—発電コスト等の検証に関する報告” [“Report on Power Generation Costs etc. to the Basic Policy Committee”], METI, 13 July 2021, op. cit.
699 - Eri Ohsaka, Kenichi Oshima, et al., “Toden Kaikaku to Fukushima Genshiryoku Hatsuden Jiko No Sekinin: Kaikaku Teigen
Ni Itaru Giron to Sono Go No Kensho” [“Reform of Tokyo Electric Power Co’ and Responsibility of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Accident: Assessment of Discussion leading to Reform Recommendations”], Keiei Kenkyu, Management Research, Vol. 72, No. 1,
2021. Original hearing information was published at the 6th meeting of TEPCO Reform Committee; see TEPCO Reform Committee,“Gensiryoku Songai Baisho Hairo Tou Shien Kiko” [“Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation);and Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation, “有識者ヒアリング結果報告” [“Report on
Hearing Results of Experts”], 9 December 2016 (in Japanese), see https://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/energy_environment/
touden_1f/pdf/006_02_00.pdf, accessed 10 May 2021.

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An Independent Estimate by JCER in 2017
In 2017, the Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER) came up with a different cost estimatebased on their own methodology and assumptions. The report concluded the cost could rise to¥50–70 trillion (US$460~660 billion). (See Table 10)
Table 10 – JCER Estimates (2017) versus Government Estimate (2016) (in US$2021 billion)
Gov (2016)

JCER-AJCER-B

Decommissioning

75

103

301

Decontamination

56

282

282

Compensation

75

78

75

Total

207

463

658

Sources: METI, 2016; JCER, 2017700

Assumptions for the above estimates are the following.
ɆɆ Decommissioning. The government estimate is based on the decommissioning cost ofThree Mile Island (TMI), which was a partial meltdown in 1979 and the molten fuel was
contained in the pressure vessel. In the Fukushima case, the three meltdowns at Units 1–3
led to the fuel penetrating the pressure vessels making the basic situation technicallymuch more complex. Also, the government estimate does not include final disposal ofradioactive waste from the decommissioning. Typically, only 1–2 percent of the total waste
volume being generated by the decommissioning of a reactor is radioactive. JCER assumes
that all the waste produced by the decommissioning of Units 1–3 will become radioactive
waste. Accordingly, the total decommissioning cost increases from US$75 billion to
US$103 billion.
ɆɆ Contaminate Water Management. For option A, JCER assumed that the over one million
tons of contaminated water will be released to the sea according to the government plan,so no additional cost is added, although costs may increase if further separation of otherradioisotopes is needed (which is highly likely for a large part of the stored water). For option B,
instead of releasing the contaminated water to the sea, JCER assumed separation of tritiumfrom the treated water, but again does not add any cost estimate for further separation ofother isotopes. The cost of tritium separation is estimated based on the costs experienced atFugen (prototype ATR) facility, which is ¥20 million/ton (~US$0.19 million/ton)701. Assuming
the total tritium water is about 1 million tons, another ¥20 trillion (~US$190 billion) was
added for Option B.
ɆɆ Additional compensation. For option A, due to releasing the tritium water to the sea,
JCER assumed additional compensation to the local fishermen with a population of about
1,500 persons. They assumed a compensation amount of ¥10 million (~US$94,000) perperson in the initial year and gradually declining to zero over a 40-year period. Then the
total additional compensation amount reaches to ¥300 billion (~US$2.8 billion).
700 - JCER, “Accident Cleanup Costs May Rise to 50-70 Trillion yen: It’s Time to Examine legal liquidation of TEPCO”, Japan Center
for Economic Research, 7 March 2017; and The Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F Challenges, “Recommendations
for Reforming TEPCO”, METI, 20 December 2016.
701 - The cost of tritium separation could be lower, as there are proposals based on commercially available technologies. For example,
see Sergei Floria and Alexander Kostilev, “Demonstration project for verification test of tritium separation technology—Final Report”,
Rosatom, 2016.

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ɆɆ Decontamination. The government estimate does not include final disposal cost ofcontaminated soil and other radioactive wastes coming out of decontamination work in
the Fukushima area. Total volume is assumed to be 22 million tons (as of 2017) and JCER
applied the actual cost of low-level waste disposal at Rokkasho village of ¥8–19 billion for
10,000 tons. So JCER’s estimate was ¥30 trillion (US$282 billion).

An Updated Estimate by JCER in 2019
While the government has not updated its own estimate of total accidental costs since 2016,
JCER made an updated estimate in 2019.
This time, given it is not clear whether TEPCO can take out all melted fuel debris fromthe reactors, JCER came up alternative case of postponement of decommissioning of thereactors 1–3 for 40 years (Option C). In addition, JCER updated tritium separation cost due
to increase in volume of treated water from 1 million tons to 2 million tons (Option E). JCER
also updated the cost of decontamination due to decrease in volume of radioactive waste from22 million tons to 14 million tons. Option D is an updated version of Option B in 2017. As aresult, JCER’s estimates are now US$322 billion (Option C), US$385 billion (Option D) and
US$758 billion (Option E). (See Table 11.)
Table 11 – Updated JCER’s Estimate (2019) and Original Estimate (2017)2017-A2017-B2019-C

2019-D2019-E

Decommissioning

103

301

40

103

476

Decontamination

282

282

186

186

186

Compensation

78

75

96

96

96

Total

463

658

322

385

758
Sources: JCER, 2017, 2019

The new estimates above (rounded) are based on the following assumptions:“JCER’s 2019-cost estimate ranges
from US$322 billion to US$758 billion”
ɆɆ Decommissioning. In scenario 2019-C, JCER assumed that decommissioning will bedelayed until 2050, so that decommissioning costs would be minimum. If decommissioning
is postponed, which would be a significant change from the current plan to take out all
debris and clean up the land as soon as possible, JCER assumed that it would be necessary
to purchase land owned by residents of “difficult-to-return zones”. Land purchase prices of
all lands is estimated to total ¥1.1 trillion (US$10 billion). For option C, decommissioning
cost would be ¥3.25 trillion plus ¥1.1 trillion thus ¥4.3 trillion (US$40 billion). This estimate
does not include potential additional costs after 2050, and costs of possible measures likethe construction of a containment structure are also not included. Therefore, this estimate
should be considered as on the lower end for scenario C.
ɆɆ For scenario D, JCER assumed the same decommissioning cost as in 2017-A which is¥11 trillion (US$103 billion).

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ɆɆ Contaminated Water Management. The assumption on the amount of contaminatedwater to be managed was increased from one to two million tons. This increase is based
upon the hypothesis that cooling of fuel debris will continue until 2030, which results in an
additional 800,000 tons. The management cost of treated water, which was not included in
the 2017 estimate, is now estimated to be ¥150 billion (US$1.4 billion) by 2030. After 2030,
JCER assumed that the management costs will gradually taper off, and will reach zero by
2050. As a result, ¥3.25 trillion (US$30 billion) is added as part of decommissioning cost.
ɆɆ For scenario E, JCER considered tritium-separation costs for two instead of one million
tons of contaminated water, which is estimated at ¥40 trillion (~US$370 billion). Thus, thetotal decommissioning cost of scenario E reaches ¥51 trillion (US$476 billion).
ɆɆ Decontamination. Since the Ministry of Environment reduced its estimate for the amountof rubble and soil generated in the process of decontamination from 22 to 14 million m³,
the estimate of final disposal costs was reduced from ¥30 trillion (US$280 billion) in 2017
to 20 trillion yen (US$186 billion) in 2019.
ɆɆ Compensation. The amount of compensation to be paid by TEPCO had already increased
to more than ¥8.7 trillion (US$80 billion) by 2017 and is now estimated by METI toreach ¥10 trillion (US$92 billion). Additional compensation to local communities of¥0.3 trillion (US$3 billion) might have to be added to the compensation. Therefore, thetotal compensation amount in the three 2019-scenarios is estimated at ¥10.4 trillion(US$96 billion).
In total, JCER’s 2019-cost estimate ranges from US$322 billion to US$758 billion [all in 2021
prices] depending on whether decommissioning will be done by 2050 or postponed to after
2050.
Figure 38 compares the government and JCER estimates.
Figure 38 · JCER Estimates (2019) versus Government Estimates (2016/2021)
719.3
700

Fukushima Disaster Induced Costs
Government Estimates (2016 and 2021)
versus JCER Estimates (2019)

600

in US$ billion

500

Other (Administration Costs)

384.8

Decommissioning
Decontamination

300

Compensation
200© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

400

322.4

206.5

223.1
200

100
0

100

2016

2021

Government

2019-C 2019-D 2019-E

0

JCER

Sources: METI, 2016; METI, 2021; JCER, 2019

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Conclusions
In summary, the government estimate of the cost of the Fukushima disaster of US$200 billion
made in 2016 is neither comprehensive nor up to date and clearly underestimates the total
costs. Although JCER’s estimates are also based on rough assumptions, they show muchhigher numbers, depending on a variety of assumptions, ranging from about US$320 billion
to US$760 billion. The biggest difference between the government and JCER estimates comesfrom the fact that the official estimate does not include final disposal costs for radioactive
waste generated by decommissioning and decontamination. Another big factor is the cost ofwater purification. While tritium separation could turn out lower than estimated by JCER,
likely additional separation work for other radioisotopes have not been included at all in any
cost estimate.
The analysis above entails a number of policy implications.
“It appears critically important to explore a variety of scenarios fordecommissioning that provide a sound environmental, health and economic
basis for decision-making.”

Exploring Various Options for Decommissioning
The government estimates are based on fixed assumptions and no assessment of various
scenarios has been carried out. In its 2017-estimate, JCER explores the option to separate
tritium from contaminated water. In its 2019-estimate, JCER considered the option to postpone
decommissioning of the reactors until 2050. This option has never been publicly discussed
by the government, but it is very unlikely that all fuel debris can be removed from the site
in the timeframe envisaged by the government and TEPCO (see Fukushima Status Report:
Overview of Onsite and Offsite Challenges). Both of JCER’s option assessments suggest thatdifferent choices could significantly impact costs upwards or downwards. Therefore, it appears
critically important to explore a variety of scenarios for decommissioning that provide a soundenvironmental, health and economic basis for decision-making.

Economic Competitiveness of Nuclear Power
Reflecting the Total Costs of the DisasterThe generation costs of nuclear power in Japan have not been reassessed based on the new costestimates of the Fukushima disaster. The most recent nuclear electricity cost-estimate by thegovernment (METI) was carried out in 2021 and estimated at >¥11.5/kWh (>US$¢10.8/kWh)702 .
This included estimated costs associated with the 3/11 events and assumed then those total
costs would be limited to ¥23.8 trillion (US$223 billion). It was translated into ¥15.7 trillion(US$147 billion) for a model plant703 . As a result, for the first time, the estimated nuclear
702 - Power Generation Cost Analysis Working Group, “基本政策分科会に対する—発電コスト等の検証に関する報告” [“Report on
Power Generation Costs etc. to the Basic Policy Committee”], METI, 13 July 2021, op. cit.
703 - METI’s model plant: 1,200 MWe, average capacity factor 70%, discount rate 3%. No detailed breakdown of the power-generation
cost-estimate has been published yet. But basic assumptions are; capital cost is ¥480 billion (US$4.1 billion) versus ¥440 billion in
the 2016 estimate, based on the assumption of ¥400,000/kW, decommissioning ¥75 billion (US$0.7 billion) vs. ¥71.6 billion in 2016,
additional safety ¥136.9 billion (US$1.3 billion) vs. ¥60.1 billion in 2016, Rokkasho reprocessing ¥14.4 trillion (US$140 billion) vs.
¥12.6 trillion in 2016. MOX fabrication ¥2.4 trillion (US$23 billion) vs. ¥2.1 trillion in 2016. See Working Group on Power Generation
Cost Assessment, METI, 13 July 2021, op. cit.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 generation costs are no longer the cheapest power generation source in Japan. According to the
new government estimates, the lower end of the indicated range704 represents rooftop solar as
the cheapest source at ¥9.5–14.5/kWh followed by LNG at >¥10.5–14.5/kWh.
JCER reassessed the estimated generation cost for nuclear power based on its 2017-estimate
for the costs of the Fukushima disaster. JCER assumed construction cost would double
to ¥740,000/kW (US$6,770/kW) up from ¥370,0000/kW (US$3,390/kW). Accordingly,
the estimated cost of nuclear electricity generation increased by almost half to ¥14.7/kWh(US$c13.5/kWh).

Access to Information and Independent Oversight
There is a lack of access to information on the implications—economic, but also environmental
and societal in general—of the decommissioning process. There is also a lack of an effective,
independent oversight organization. The government 2016-cost estimate, officially released by
METI, was carried out by the TEPCO Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F[Fukushima Daiichi] Challenges and the underlying assumptions were never fully disclosed. It
is therefore impossible to scrutinize those numbers. Besides, no update has been carried out
since.

JUDICIAL DECISIONS ON DAMAGESAND CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR THE
FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS
Introduction
Over the past decade, since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster began, many court
cases have been filed by residents around nuclear power plants. The present chapter provides
an overview of some of the most significant lawsuits, including attempts to establish a link
between the responsibilities for the disaster and complaints filed against Fukushima owneroperator TEPCO and the Japanese Government. Another series of cases has been filed against
all operating reactors and restart attempts by nuclear operators except for one (Higashidori).
Some were lost by the plaintiffs, some succeeded. These cases have been profoundly impactful
and continue to reshape the judicial decision-making in the nuclear sector in Japan.705

704 - There is no average figure indicated.
705 - This piece uses citations from all-Japanese Hanrei Jihou, the most authoritative case journal in the public domain, when they
were available, and the courts’ websites when they were not, or the websites of plaintiffs’ groups and others when the first two
references were not available. Although the URLs of the courts’ websites cannot be copied, it can be easily searched by the generalpublic by entering the court and date indicated in the article.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Historic Ikata Case: Japanese Supreme Court
Demands High Level of Nuclear Safety
During Japan’s first nuclear power plant lawsuit, brought against the Ikata nuclear power plant,
Hideo Uchida, Chairman of the Nuclear Reactor Safety Review Board of the Japan Atomic
Energy Commission (JAEC) at the time of his testimony, and then the first Chairman of theformer Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC), testified that the safety of nuclear power plants
was absolutely assured, citing the “Rasmussen Report”706 on nuclear power plant safety.707 The
plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed by the Supreme Court in 1992.708
The decision appears to be flawed in its interpretation of nuclear safety as the court limited thematters to be judged in administrative litigation to basic design, where relative safety should
be ensured, and its judgement gave significant discretion to the government.
However, this ruling did include some important content, specifically:ɆɆ that nuclear power plants have the potential to cause serious disasters;
ɆɆ that the government’s examination of nuclear power plants is designed to prevent such adisaster from occurring under any circumstances (“not even one in ten thousand times” in
the Japanese idiom);ɆɆ that the judiciary should make decisions based on current scientific knowledge, not basedon outdated knowledge at the time of licensing; andɆɆ that the burden of proof for safety is on the government, not the plaintiffs.

Fukushima Case: Judicial Decisions Regarding
the Responsibility of TEPCO and the StateOn 11 March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake (hereafter 3/11) occurred, causing a total
loss of power at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, submersion of the emergency
diesel power system, and a series of meltdowns in Units 1–3 (see Fukushima Status Report:
Overview of Onsite and Offsite Challenges).
In July 2002, the National Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion (a government
institute) raised the issue in its “long-term assessment” that a consensus of leading earthquake
and tsunami scientists acknowledge three major tsunami-causing earthquakes exceeding
magnitude 8 to have occurred in the past 400 years along the Japan Trench between the
Tohoku region and the Boso coast, including the area offshore of the Fukushima Daiichi
706 - The “Rasmussen Report” directed by MIT’s Norm Rasmussen, with its official name “Reactor Safety Study”, WASH-1400,(NUREG 75/014) published by the then newly established U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in October 1975, was the firstformal Probabilistic Risk Assessment for nuclear power plants. It concluded that “nuclear power plants have achieved a relatively low
level of risk compared to many other activities in which our society engages”. In January 1979, two months before the Three Mile
Island partial meltdown, the NRC issued a severe critique of the report, stating “absolute values of the risks presented by WASH1400 should not be used uncritically either in the regulatory process or for public policy purposes” and that “the Commission does
not regard as reliable the Reactor Safety Study’s numerical estimate of the overall risk of reactor accident”. See U.S.NRC, “Nuclear
Regulatory Commission Issues Policy Statement on Reactor Safety Study and Review by Lewis Panel”, 19 January 1979,see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1802/ML18022B145.pdf, accessed 3 July 2021.
707 - Hosomi Shū, “されど真実は執拗なり : 伊方原発訴訟を闘った弁護士・藤田一良” [“But the Truth is Persistent: Kazuyoshi
Fujita, a Lawyer Who Fought the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant Lawsuit”], Iwanami Shoten, 2016, p.64–76
708 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 1441 p.37

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and that such tsunami-causing earthquakes were likely to occur again in
the future.709
In 2004, a large tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra hit a nuclear power
plant in Kalpakkam in southern India. In response to this event, in 2006, Japan’s Nuclear
and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) demanded that electric utilities adopt strict tsunami
countermeasures.710 However, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) did not take any
additional measures.
In February 2008, at a meeting attended by TEPCO’s top executives, Kazuhiko Yamashita, who
was then second in command of the Nuclear Power Division, proposed a plan to implement
countermeasures in accordance with the long-term assessment mentioned above, which wasapproved by the president and other directors.
In March 2008, simulation results based on the long-term assessment showed that a tsunami
could potentially reach a height of 15.7 meters, this being almost three times higher than thedesign basis standard of 5.7 meters above sea level.
This result was reported by TEPCO’s Civil Engineering Research Group to then Vice
President Muto in June of the same year, and in response the Vice President instructed themto consider countermeasures for equipment, including a method to reduce the tsunami
run-up height to 4-meter ground (ground 4 meters above the Onahama Peil (O.P.)) where
the emergency seawater pumps were installed, and to arrange permits for the installationof an offshore breakwater. However, in July 2009, Vice President Muto instructed the Civil
Engineering Research Group to postpone the tsunami countermeasures and to ask the Japan
Society of Civil Engineers, which is made up of academics with links to the power companies
and that receives funding from the power industry, to reexamine the design basis tsunami.
Instead of submitting the results of this simulation to the government and Fukushima
Prefecture immediately, TEPCO executives reported the results to the government on
7 March 2011, just four days before the accident.
The primary responsibility for the Fukushima accident lies with TEPCO for failing to adopt
tsunami countermeasures in response to the government’s tsunami forecast (the “long-term
assessment”), while secondary responsibility lies with the government for not requiring
TEPCO to implement tsunami countermeasures based on its own earthquake and tsunami
assessment.
Judicial decisions on whether or not the government is responsible for the accident are divided:
the Sendai High-Court decision on 30 September 2020 and the Tokyo High-Court decision on
19 February 2021 have acknowledged the government’s responsibility, while a separate Tokyo
High-Court decision of 18 February 2021 rejected the responsibility of the state. All three ofthese cases have been appealed, and the Supreme Court’s decisions are expected to be issued
within the coming year. These judgements will be important.711
709 - Committee on Earthquake Research, “三陸沖から房総沖にかけての地震活動の長期評価について” [“Long-Term Assessmentof Seismic Activity off Sanriku to Boso-Oki”], Earthquake Research Promotion Headquarters, Government of Japan, 31 July 2002,
see https://www.jishin.go.jp/main/chousa/kaikou_pdf/sanriku_boso.pdf, accessed 30 August 2021.
710 - The following paragraphs are based on evidence presented to the court in the TEPCO criminal trial.
711 - See Courts in Japan, “裁判例検索”, Undated, see https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/search1, accessed 3 September 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

TEPCO Criminal Case
A manslaughter case against three TEPCO executives sought to establish criminal responsibility
for the accident. The Tokyo District Court, presided by Judge Kenichi Nagabuchi, acquitted
all defendants on 19 September 2019.712 The court ruled that the safety review standards fornuclear power plants were not based on the premise of ensuring absolute safety. The court
also emphasized that there were scholars who disagreed with the “long-term assessment” andconcluded that the executives were not obligated to take measures based on the “long-term
assessment”. This decision is in direct contradiction to the aforementioned decision that foundthe government liable for state compensation. This decision can be evaluated as a de‑facto
rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Ikata case, which ruled that the safety of
nuclear power plants must be ensured to prevent serious disasters from occurring.
Despite the acquittal, the facts and evidence uncovered by the criminal trial provided much of
the basis for the High Court’s decisions in favor of the plaintiffs in the “Nariwai” and “Chiba”
civil lawsuits, in which the government was found liable.

TEPCO Civil Liability Case713
The TEPCO shareholder representative lawsuit, which has been underway to clarify thecivil liability of TEPCO executives, began intensive witness examination in February 2021.
The former head of the Volcano and Earthquake Department of the Japan Meteorological
Agency (JMA), who was also a member of the Long-Term Assessment Subcommittee, testified
clearly that the “long-term assessment” was highly reliable.
Meanwhile, Yukinobu Okamura, who was a member of NISA’s safety review committee whileworking on tsunami deposits at a government-established research institute, told TEPCO
officials who said they wanted to continue the tsunami deposit survey: “The scale of the Jogan
tsunami [of 869 AD] will never decrease, even if you continue the survey. Continuing thesurvey is of no further use. You should start countermeasure work right now”.
These two important testimonies point to the responsibility of TEPCO.
Furthermore, Atsuo Watanabe and Masashi Goto, former Toshiba nuclear power plantengineers, testified that waterproofing and sea walls to prevent tsunami inundation were
technically easy to implement and that such countermeasures could have been implemented by
the time of the accident.
Five former TEPCO executives are currently being questioned by the court.
The Tokyo District Court has decided that judges will visit the site of the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant in October 2021. According to TEPCO, this will be the first time thatjudges visit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant site.
More than 50 TEPCO shareholders have sued five former executives for compensation overdamages caused by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and theshareholders have asked the judge to visit the site.
712 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 2431, 11 March 2020.
713 - This section is based on information gathered by Lawyer Yuichi Kaido, who is working on the case.

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The judge said, “I would like to see the location of the nuclear power plant firsthand before
making a decision on responsibility for the accident”.
Judges have inspected the surrounding area on a number of occasions in civil trials overcompensation for the nuclear power plant accidents, but they have never visited the Fukushima
Daiichi site itself.
In the first trial of the criminal case in which the three former TEPCO executives were forcibly
indicted, the designated lawyer acting as the prosecutor requested the judge to inspect the site.
However, the judge rejected the request.

Residents Win Lawsuits, Preventing Restarts
After 3/11, citizens who had doubts about the safety of nuclear power plants swiftly launchedactions against almost all nuclear power plants in Japan, filing civil suits, provisional
injunctions, and administrative actions against the operation of one or more reactors.
As of April 2021, there have been eight court decisions that have accepted the opinions of theplaintiffs and suspended the operation of nuclear power plants.
The first of these was a decision by the Fukui District Court on 21 May 2014, presided by Judge
Hideaki Higuchi, to stop the operation of the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant.714
This decision was based on the following principles:ɆɆ that the foundational personal rights of human life are of supreme value;ɆɆ that the operation of nuclear power plants falls under the category of freedom of economic
activity, and economic rights should be subordinated to the right to life and health; andɆɆ the fact that earthquakes exceeding the base earthquake ground motion have occurred
five times in the past clearly shows that the method of determining the base earthquake
ground motion is wrong.715
This decision can be evaluated as a milestone in which the judiciary acknowledged the severityof the Fukushima nuclear accident. On 14 April 2015, Judge Higuchi issued a provisional
injunction order against the operation of Takahama Units 3 and 4, thereby halting the operationof reactors that were actually in operation. This decision was critical of the fact that it wasdifficult to find any rationality in basing the design basis earthquake ground motion for nuclear
power plants on an average concept of earthquakes, and it had been shown to be unreliable not
only in theoretical terms, but also in terms of its actual performance.
Subsequently, two further provisional injunctions were issued by the Otsu District Court
to stop the operation of the plant due to inadequate earthquake motion assumptions andevacuation plans.

714 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 2228, P.72.
715 - Ibidem.

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Volcanic Controversy over the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant
Kagoshima District Court Decision
The Sendai Nuclear Power Plant is located in the western part of Kagoshima Prefecture close
to a number of volcanoes, including the Aira Caldera and Sakurajima. On 22 April 2015, theKagoshima District Court, presided by Judge Ikukatsu Maeda, rejected residents’ petition
for an injunction against the operation of Units 1 and 2 of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant.716
The decision judged that pyroclastic eruptions (eruptions involving the ejection of rocks)
can be predicted long in advance, and while acknowledging that there are a certain numberof volcanologists who believe that the possibility of catastrophic eruption activity is not
sufficiently small, they do not constitute the majority of the volcanological community, andthe court consequently judged the possibility of such volcanic activity to be sufficiently small.

Decision by the Miyazaki Branch of the Fukuoka High Court
On 6 April 2016, the Miyazaki Branch of the Fukuoka High Court, presided by Judge
Tomoichiro Nishikawa approved the restart of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant and dismissed
the residents’ appeal.717 However, the decision acknowledged many of the residents’ factual
claims regarding the volcano. Significantly, it judged that the content of the “Volcano Guide”
produced by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which assumes that the timing and scaleof an eruption can be accurately predicted a considerable time in advance, is unreasonable.
It also ruled that the government should, in principle, declare a site unsuitable if there is a
volcano thought to have triggered during its largest eruption in the past a volcanic event thatcannot be designed against, i.e. a pyroclastic flow reaching the site of the nuclear power plant.
The decision also found unreasonable Kyushu Electric Power’s assessment that the eruption
potential of five caldera volcanoes was sufficiently small.
Nevertheless, the court ruled that the only way to determine the risk of volcanic eruptions
is to base it on socially accepted notions regarding the extent to which the Japanese society
accepts the risk. The court then dismissed the residents’ case on the basis of such sociallyaccepted notions, saying that it is socially accepted to ignore and tolerate the risk of natural
disasters whose effects, although extremely serious and severe, have never been experienced
in the historical period, unless the plaintiffs prove the possibility of such a disaster occurring.

Controversy Over Ikata and the Aso Eruption
Provisional dispositions filed in four District Courts
In August 2016, the Ikata nuclear power plant located in Shikoku was restarted. In response,
provisional injunction cases were filed one after another in the four regions surrounding theplant, in the Hiroshima District Court in March 2016, in the Matsuyama District Court in
May 2016, in the Oita District Court in June 2016, and in the Iwakuni Branch of the Yamaguchi
District Court in March 2017. While the four injunction cases were eventually defeated, four
716 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 2290, P147.
717 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 2290, P90.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 civil lawsuits aiming at the shutdown of the plant are still pending in the four district courts, aswell as a new provisional injunction case filed in March 2020 in the Hiroshima District Court.
In these cases, the location of the Median Tectonic Line as a fault, its distance from the nuclear
power plant, its activity, and the angle of the fault were also points of contention, as well as thepotential impact of an eruption of Mount Aso on the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant.

Hiroshima High-Court Decision declaring the site unsuitable
On 13 December 2017, the Hiroshima High Court, presided by Judge Tomoyuki Nonoue, issued
a provisional injunction against the operation of Unit 3 of the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant,
for a limited period until 30 September 2018, in an immediate appeal against the decision of
the Matsuyama District Court.718 This was the first time that the High Court had granted an
injunction against the operation of a nuclear power plant since 3/11.
In accordance with the evaluation procedure of the NRA’s “Volcano Guide”, the decision was
based on the fact that the possibility of volcanic activity of Aso Caldera, located 130 km fromthe Ikata site, could not be judged to be sufficiently small during the reactor operation period,
and that the scale of such an eruption could not be estimated. The decision maintained thatsince it is impossible to estimate the scale of an eruption, the scale of the Aso 4 eruption of
approximately 90,000 years ago (volcanic eruption index VEI 7) should be assumed. Since
the possibility that the pyroclastic flow of the Aso-4 eruption reached the Ikata site cannot be
evaluated as sufficiently small, the location of the nuclear power plant is therefore unsuitable.
The part of the judgment relating to volcanoes cited the opinions of many volcano experts, andthe strong backing of experts such as the Volcanological Society of Japan had a great influenceon the decision.
Regarding the aforementioned theory of social acceptance, the decision accepted that it may
be considered socially acceptable to ignore the risks of a catastrophic eruption in light of thefollowing points: that the frequency of catastrophic eruptions with a volcanic eruption index
of VEI 7 or higher is said to be about once every ten thousand years when considering all
volcanoes in Japan; that a catastrophic eruption at Aso would cause a crisis of national survival
far beyond the damage caused by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident;
that natural disasters with a significantly low frequency of occurrence are not written into
regulations, with the exception of the “Volcano Guide”; and that the government has not
stipulated any countermeasures other than monitoring of volcanic activity, and there has beenno significant public concern or skepticism about this.
However, the decision seems to be contrary to the purpose of the Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Law and the new regulatory standards which change the framework of judgment criteria bymaking a limited interpretation on the basis of socially accepted notions regarding natural
disasters. NRA issued the “Volcano Guide” stipulating it should be based on the latest scientificand technological knowledge.

718 - Hanrei Jihou, No. 2357, P190.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Subsequently, on 25 September 2018, another judge of the same Hiroshima High Court struck
down this objection to the provisional disposition, on the grounds that it was socially accepted
to ignore catastrophic volcanic eruptions.719

Hiroshima High Court grants fresh injunction on the grounds of inadequate
earthquake countermeasures and volcanic ash countermeasures.
On 17 January 2020, the Hiroshima High Court, in an immediate appeal against the decisionof the Iwakuni Branch of the Yamaguchi District Court, granted an injunction against theoperation of the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant, pointing out the inadequacy of earthquake andvolcanic-ash countermeasures in the event of a major eruption.720 This decision represents animportant judgement on the level of safety required at nuclear power plants, stipulating thefollowing points:
ɆɆ A high level of safety should be required, in the sense that a severe accident like the
Fukushima accident should never be allowed to occur;
ɆɆ In judging whether or not there is a specific danger from nuclear power plants, it cannot bedenied that it is necessary to interpret and apply this principle or the spirit of this principle(exclusion of a Fukushima-type event);ɆɆ When there are conflicting views among experts on an issue, the court should notreadily adopt the view representing the less conservative position simply because it is thedominant or prevailing view.
This decision by the Hiroshima High Court could be considered a common-sense and wellbalanced judicial decision.

Hiroshima High-Court Decision overturned on appeal
However, on 18 March 2021, the Hiroshima High Court, presided by Judge Kunihiko Yokomizo,
reversed the aforementioned Hiroshima High Court decision on immediate appeal.721
This decision places the burden of proving a concrete danger of violation of personal rights on
the residents’ side, for reasons such as the court’s lack of expertise in cases where indefinitenessof science exists. This decision constitutes an attempt to overturn even the norm stipulated by
the 1992 Ikata Supreme-Court decision mentioned at the beginning of this section (see Historic
Ikata Case).

Osaka District-Court revokes license of Ohi Nuclear Power Plant
On 4 December 2020, the Osaka District Court, presided by Judge Hajime Morikagi, ruled to
revoke the license for the modification of the installation of Units 3 and 4 of the Ohi Nuclear
719 - For case proceedings and material, see 伊方原発運転差止広島裁判, Undated, see https://saiban.hiroshima-net.org/.
720 - Hiroshima High Court, “平成31(ラ)48 伊方原発３号機運転差止仮処分命令申立却下決定に対する即時抗告事件 令”[“Immediate appeal against the decision to dismiss the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 operation injunction–provisional disposition
order”], accessed via Courts in Japan, 17 January 2020, see https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/478/089478_hanrei.pdf,
accessed 9 August 2021.
721 - Hiroshima High Court, “令和2(ウ)4 — 保全異議申立事件”, 18 March 2021, see https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/
detail4?id=90237, accessed 31 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Power Plant.722 This is the first time since 3/11 that residents’ claims have been accepted in an
administrative lawsuit.
The main point of contention in this case was the magnitude of the earthquake motion that
could hit the plant. In the framework of its decision, the court followed the framework of the
1992-Supreme-Court Decision in the Ikata nuclear power plant case, and judicially examined
whether there were any unreasonable points in the regulatory standards, and whether there
were any errors or omissions that could not be overlooked in the process of investigation,
deliberation and judgement by the regulatory commission.
The plaintiffs’ main point of contention was that the design basis earthquake ground motionof the nuclear power plant had been underestimated. Earthquake ground motion is determinedby the characteristics of the rupture at the epicenter, the characteristics of seismic wave
propagation, and the characteristics of how the seismic waves are affected by the groundstructure near a given point. The plaintiffs criticized the “Irikura-Miyake formula,” which isan empirical formula used at many nuclear power plants to derive the earthquake magnitude
based on the area of the fault, saying that most of the data came from overseas, leading tounderestimation. They argued that the “Takemura formula”, which is a similar empiricalformula, should be adopted instead. The court showed some understanding on this point,saying “there is room to accept a certain degree of rationality in using the Takemura formula”,
but ultimately rejected the plaintiffs’ argument.723
Even before 3/11, the standards for the calculation of design basis earthquake ground motion
required that the uncertainty of parameters, such as the length and depth of the epicenter
fault and the tilt angle of the fault, be considered in combination as necessary in the process.
However, in the “Earthquake Motion Review Guide” established by the NRA, a provision wasadded after 3/11 that the empirical formula gives earthquake magnitude as an average value andthat the variation of the empirical formula must be taken into account.724 The court took note.
On 30 January 2020, the Osaka District Court explained that the government should at least
take into account this variation using the standard deviation when calculating the design basis
earthquake ground motion. In response, as justification for not performing the calculations
properly, the defendant—the Japanese government—argued that there was no need to take
into account the variability of the empirical equation when the uncertainty in the parametersettings was already taken into account. The Osaka District Court was scathing about thisattitude from the government.725
Ten years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, and the critical issue
in the subsequent lawsuits over the restart of nuclear power plants has been whether the safetyof nuclear power plants can be ensured against predicted earthquakes and volcanic activity.

722 - Osaka District Court, “平成24(行ウ)117 — 発電所運転停止命令義務付け請求事件”, 4 December 2020,see https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/detail5?id=90400, accessed 31 August 2021.
723 - Ibidem.
724 - NRA, “Review Guide for Design Basis Ground Motions and Seismic Design Policy”, 19 June 2013.
725 - According to a report from the lawyers in charge of the case to the National Liaison Committee of Lawyers for a Nuclear PowerFree Japan, which the author is a co-chair of.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Judge Morikagi, who wrote the Osaka District Court decision, is an elite jurist who once
worked in the Administrative Bureau of the Supreme Court. It is noteworthy that doubts about
nuclear power are now emerging among mainstream judges.

Mito District Court Rules Against Restart of Tokai Daini
On 18 March 2021, the Mito District Court, presided by Judge Eiko Maeda, issued an injunction
against the operation of the Tokai Daini Nuclear Power Plant.726
Tokai Daini is one of the nuclear power plants directly affected by 3/11, an aging reactor thatwas first connected to the grid 43 years ago. Many of the local authorities in the surroundingarea have expressed their opposition to any restart of the plant, citing doubts about its safety
and the difficulty of developing an evacuation plan.
The court ruled the framework for judging the safety of nuclear power plants to be that any
gaps or inadequacies in any of the first through fifth levels of defense-in-depth protection
represent a concrete danger.
Although no serious flaws were identified with regard to the first to fourth layer of defense-indepth, with regard to the fifth level of protection, which includes evacuation plans, the court
ruled that despite there being 940,000 residents in most exposed priority areas in a nuclear
disaster—the Precautionary Action Zone (PAZ) and Urgent Protective Action Planning
Zone (UPZ)727—a feasible evacuation plan and a structure to implement it are far from being
in place, and that the plaintiffs who live in this area are in concrete danger of violation of theirpersonal rights.
Close reading of the verdict reveals concerns regarding the approval of the nuclear power
plant site in such a densely populated area. Although the court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims
regarding earthquakes and volcanoes, the language of the verdict suggests reservations
regarding nuclear safety, in effect representing the view that there is no guarantee that a severe
accident could never occur. This decision to suspend the operation of the Tokai Daini Nuclear
Power Plant may therefore be evaluated as having been made on the grounds that “there is noeffective evacuation plan in place” should the worst happen.
The judgement recognizes that it is difficult to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants andthat an accident would cause a great deal of damage. This judgement makes it clear that an
inability to identify fatal flaws in the first to fourth levels of defense-in-depth protection does
not make it acceptable to lay out flimsy evacuation plans.

726 - Mito District Court, “平成24(行ウ)15—東海第二原子力発電所運転差止等請求事件”, 3 March 2021,
see https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/detail4?id=90255, accessed 31 August 2021.
727 - PAZ refers to the area about 5 km around the plant, and UPZ refers to the area about 5–30 km around the plant.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Conclusion
Since the Japan Supreme Court’s first ruled on nuclear safety in 1992, the judicial system has
evolved. But it is the decade since the Fukushima disaster began that brought most of thechanges, with judges showing increasing independence from powerful nuclear utilities, with
their perceived overwhelming technical expertise, and from the Government.
While legal experts see TEPCO as primarily responsible for the Fukushima disaster, three
regional High Court Decisions were split as to Government responsibility. Two courts ruled infavor, one against holding the Government accountable. All three decisions are pending before
Japan’s Supreme Court.
Three TEPCO executives were acquitted in 2019 by the Tokyo District Court in a criminalcase. The TEPCO shareholder representative lawsuit, launched to clarify the potential civil
liability of TEPCO executives, is underway and began witness examination in February 2021.
The decisions pending before the nation’s Supreme Court and the criminal case against
TEPCO will provide key jurisprudence for future cases.
In March 2021, for the first time, a court ruled against the restart of a reactor on the grounds ofa missing credible evacuation plan.
As of April 2021, there have been eight court decisions in favor of plaintiffs suspending theoperation of nuclear power plants.

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CHERNOBYL · 35 YEARS AFTER
THE DISASTER BEGANINTRODUCTION
Thirty-five years ago, on 26 April 1986, the world witnessed its worst nuclear accident. At
1:23 (GMT+3) that morning, during a planned safety system test that involved electricity shut
down, due to a faulty reactor design and series of operator errors, the reactor core at Unit 4 of
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant experienced a critical power excursion. Within seconds,
nominal energy output of the reactor core surged by a factor of more than 100, followed by asteam and then a hydrogen explosion that tore through the roof of the reactor building.728, 729
The resulting fires raged for ten days, spewing radioactive plumes from the molten nuclear fueland the burning graphite reactor core, high into the atmosphere, spreading over much of thenorthern hemisphere.
Much has changed since 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster. The country where theaccident happened—the Soviet Union—disappeared and fifteen new ones, including Belarus,
the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, emerged, in no small part due to Chernobyl’s politicaland social fallout.730 The RBMK reactor design implicated in the accident is no longer in use
outside Russia. Thousands lost their lives, hundreds of thousands their homes and livelihoods,
millions resigned to live in radioactive contamination. Some 200 villages and towns in Belarus
and Ukraine have vanished from the map; more are likely to follow as their inhabitants pass.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on dealing with the aftermath of the accident
or were written down as economic loss. After the severe post-Soviet transition crisis, Ukraine,
aided by the international community, managed the closure of the other three reactors at
Chernobyl and built a long-term confinement for Unit 4. Once restricted to the public, theexclusion zone has become a tourist destination. Yet 35 years on, the story of Chernobyl is far
from over. Some of the most formidable challenges lie ahead.

ONSITE CHALLENGES
New Safe Confinement (NSC)In November 2016, the Ukrainian government inaugurated the New Safe Confinement (NSC),
an arch-like structure that covers Unit 4 and the old concrete sarcophagus hastily built over
the reactor shortly after the accident. The arch is the largest land-based movable structure

728 - Kazuo Yoshida, Fumiya Tanabe et al., “Analyses of Power Excursion Event in Chernobyl Accident with RETRAN Code”, Journalof Nuclear Science and Technology, Vol. 23, Issue 12, December 1986.
729 - Mycle Schneider, “The Chernobyl Disaster: A Human Tragedy for Generations to Come”, in International Physicians for thePrevention of Nuclear War, “Rethinking Nuclear Energy and Democracy After September 11, 2001”, 2004.
730 - Mariana Budjeryn, “Chernobyl’s effects go far beyond what you’re seeing on HBO. It shook up geopolitics for years”,
The Washington Post, 15 July 2019, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/15/chernobyls-effects-go-far-beyond-whatyoure-seeing-hbo-it-shook-up-geopolitics-years/, accessed 17 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ever built.731 The NSC is meant to hermetically seal off Unit 4 from the environment and has a
projected lifetime of at least 100 years.732
Its construction was financed from the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, established in 1997 and closedin October 2020733, which attracted over €1.6 billion (US$20211.8 billion) in contributions
from 45 donor states and organizations, including the European Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment (EBRD), the largest donor and the manager of the Fund.734 The NSC is completewith auxiliary structures such as a medical and radiation protection facility, integrated system
for monitoring radiation data and seismic activities, information on the structural integrity ofthe old shelter, and other safety parameters important for the operation of the NSC.735
While the completion of the Chernobyl NSC was a widely celebrated milestone, many challenges
remain. Ninety-five percent of the original nuclear fuel in the Unit 4 core—some 170 tons ofirradiated fuel rods, their zirconium cladding, graphite control rods, and sand dumped in 1986
on the core to extinguish the fire, all melted together to form the so-called Fuel-Containing
Materials (FCMs)—remain buried in the reactor basement. The risk of nuclear activity inside
the FCMs escalating into self-sustaining fission and causing another accident, remains. The
old sarcophagus was leaky and admitted rainwater which acted as moderator, slowing down
neutrons and increasing their chance of hitting and splitting the uranium nuclei. In the past,scientists sprinkled neutron-absorbing gadolinium nitrate to prevent the FCM from reaching
criticality, an imperfect measure since the sprinklers could not penetrate some basement
rooms, blocked by debris.736
With the construction of the NSC, the hope was that the risk of a run-away reaction in the FCM
would be averted, and indeed, over the past four years, the neutron count in most of the areas
has been stable or declining. In one room, however, it nearly doubled over the past four years,
for reasons scientists have struggled to explain.737 Should the FCM reach criticality, the NSC
would contain the radioactive release. The concern, however, is that a steam explosion froma sudden boiling of leaked water could send the old sarcophagus crumbling. The structure isalready on the verge of collapse, and in July 2019, the Chernobyl-plant management contracted
a company to take it apart by 2023, a project that will have to be carried out in conditions ofhigh radiation-exposure risk.738 Ultimately, the plan is to remove the FCMs from the reactor
basement and store them securely in a geological repository.739
731 - EBRD, “Unique engineering feat concluded as Chernobyl arch has reached resting place”, European Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment, 29 November 2016, see https://www.ebrd.com/news/2016/unique-engineering-feat-concluded-as-chernobyl-arch-hasreached-resting-place.html, accessed 17 May 2021.
732 - EBRD, “The Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan”, Undated, see https://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/sectors/nuclear-safety/
chernobyl-shelter-implementation.html, accessed 17 May 2021.
733 - Simon Evans, “Goodbye Chernobyl Shelter Fund”, EBRD, 20 October 2020, see https://www.ebrd.com/news/2020/goodbyechernobyl-shelter-fund.html, accessed 30 July 2021.
734 - EBRD, “Chernobyl Shelter Fund”, Undated, see https://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/sectors/nuclear-safety/chernobyl-shelterfund.html, accessed 30 July 2021.
735 - EBRD, “The Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan”, Undated, op. cit.
736 - Richard Stone, “‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl”, Science, 5 May 2021,
see https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor, accessed 6 May 2021.
737 - Ibidem.
738 - SSE ChNPP, “Contract Signed to Construct Infrastructure for Shelter Dismantling”, Chornobyl NPP, 2 August 2019, see https://chnpp.gov.ua/en/infocenter/news/5375-contract-signed-to-construct-infrastructure-for-shelter-dismantling, accessed 17 May 2021.
739 - Although plans for a geological repository exist, no specific location or project has been commissioned.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste
Another issue at Chernobyl is the spent nuclear fuel. After the accident on Unit 4, the otherthree reactors continued operating, until they were eventually closed: Unit 1 in 1996, Unit 2
in 1991 and Unit 3 in 2000. Over the course of its operation from 1977 to 2000, the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant accumulated some 21,000 spent fuel assemblies, dozens of them damaged
during the accident at Unit 4, containing close to 2,500 tons of heavy metal.740 These have been
removed from reactor pools and stored in a centralized wet-type Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel
Storage facility (ISF-1) that was commissioned at Chernobyl in 1986 and consists of five pools.
Four of the pools have since been filled to 99-percent capacity, the fifth is held in reserve.741
In 2000, after the last Chernobyl reactor was closed, EBRD and other international donors
agreed to finance the construction of a plant for processing liquid radioactive waste and a drytype storage facility, ISF-2, into which spent fuel from ISF-1 as well as some 2,000 spent fuelabsorbers and over 23,000 activated connecting rods (fuel assembly parts) would be transferred
to be stored for up to 100 years.742 The liquid waste processing facility was completed in 2018
and is meant to operate for 10 years.743 It is equipped to solidify liquid nuclear waste from theexisting storage facility into a cement compound, and package it into 200-liter drums andreinforced concrete overpacks to be deposited in a long-term storage facility.744
By September 2019, the ISF-2 dry storage facility, the largest of its kind in the world andbuilt by U.S. company Holtec International745, completed “cold” tests and in December 2020
conducted a “hot” test, during which some 186 spent fuel assemblies were transferred to thefacility, prepared for dry storage, loaded into cannisters, deposited into concrete dry storage
vaults, and sealed by IAEA inspectors.746 In April 2021, the Ukrainian regulator granted thelicense to begin full-scale operation of spent fuel transfer from the ISF-1 pools to the ISF-2 dry
storage.747

740 - Mainly uranium, about 1 percent plutonium. Matthew French, David Nixon et al., “Packaging of Damaged Spent Fuel,”
Amec Foster Wheeler, 14 December 2016, see https://rwm.nda.gov.uk/publication/packaging-of-damaged-spent-fuel/?download,
accessed 3 August 2021.
741 - State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, “Informatsiina Dovidka Shchodo Realizatsiii Proektu‘Budivnytstvo Skhovyshcha Vidpratsiovanoho Iadernoho Palyva (SVIaP-2)” [“Information Regarding the Implementation of the
Project “Construction of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage (ISF-2)”]”, Undated, see http://dazv.gov.ua/budivnytstvo-nbk-ta-svyap-2/
informatsijna-dovidka-shchodo-realizatsiji-proektu-budivnitstvo-skhovishcha-vidpratsovanogo-yadernogo-paliva-svyap-2.html,
accessed 17 May 2021.
742 - State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, “Promizhne Skhovyshche Vidpratsiovanoho Iadernoho Palyva‘Sukhoho’ Typu (SVIaP-2) [Dry-Type Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2)]”, Undated, see http://dazv.gov.ua/
informatsijni-materiali-dlya-zmi/promizhne-skhovishche-vidpratsovanogo-yadernogo-paliva-sukhogo-tipu-svyap-2.html,
accessed 7 June 2021.
743 - SSE ChNPP, “Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant (LRTP)”, 4 March 2019, see https://chnpp.gov.ua/en/187-projects/
completed-projects/436-2010-09-13-07-21-32436, accessed 30 July 2021.
744 - Ibidem.
745 - This followed an abandoned project by the French nuclear industry : “The history of its construction is not simple as the firstcontractor – French company ‘Framatome’ – somehow ended up having made the building with cracks in its concrete body and could
not decide how to remove water from the damaged FEs”, SSE ChNPP, “Chornobyl Zone “Storage Facilities” or Why ISF Is Not a
Repository”, n.d., see https://chnpp.gov.ua/en/194-presscenter/unofficially/4886-storage-facilities-of-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-or-whyisf-is-not-a-repository, accessed 30 July 2021.
746 - SSE ChNPP, “Chernobyl NPP successfully completes transfer of spent nuclear fuel within ‘hot tests’ at ISF-2”, Chornobyl NPP,
15 December 2020, see https://chnpp.gov.ua/en/infocenter/news/5714-chornobyl-npp-successfully-completes-transfer-of-spent-nuclearfuel-within-hot-tests-at-isf-2, accessed 3 August 2021.
747 - SSE ChNPP, “Permit obtained for retrieval of standard spent nuclear fuel”, Chornobyl NPP, 21 May 2021, see https://chnpp.gov.ua/
en/infocenter/news/5827-permit-obtained-for-retrieval-of-standard-spent-nuclear-fuel, accessed 3 August 2021.

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Several solid radioactive waste storage facilities have been operated and upgraded to handle
waste generated during operation of the Chernobyl reactors as well as waste generated during
the operation of the NSC.748 In addition, the solid radioactive waste facilities began receiving
wastes stemming from the reprocessing in Russia of spent VVER fuel from Ukraine’s othernuclear power plants.749 Holtec International is currently building the Central Spent Fuel
Storage Facility (CSFSF) for VVER reactor spent fuel close to the ISF-2. Ultimately, Ukraine
plans to cease returning its spent nuclear fuel to Russia and store it locally, as a cost-saving
measure and a way to minimize the dependence of its nuclear sector on Russia.750
The construction of the NSC, the liquid nuclear waste processing facility, and the dry storage
are part of the initial two stages of the Ukrainian government’s four-stage, long-term programfor decommissioning the Chernobyl plant.751 The full completion of the second stage, involving
the dismantling of the most radioactive equipment and mothballing of Units 1, 2, and 3, is
expected by 2022, although financing challenges might cause delays.
Stage three, involving maintenance of the mothballed reactors to achieve reductions inambient radiation to acceptable levels, is due to last until 2045.752 Stage four, involving the full
dismantlement of the three reactors and site clean-up, is expected to be completed by around2065.753

Tourism, Conservation, and Research
The State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM), created in 2014
under the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, has embarked on a campaign todevelop the Ukrainian section of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), an area 30 km in radiuscordoned after the accident, along several directions. One is tourism: SAUEZM has made apush to attract visitors to Chernobyl’s Soviet time-capsule attractions, such as the abandoned
town of Prypiat and the Soviet-era Dyatel (Woodpecker) radar. The idea is to capitalize on
Chernobyl’s dark mystery and at the same time to demystify, “through transparency”, nuclear
energy and long-terms effects of Chernobyl.754 The number of visitors to the CEZ went from748 - SSE ChNPP, “Industrial complex for solid radioactive waste management (ICSRM)”, Chornobyl NPP, 20 July 2021,
see https://chnpp.gov.ua/en/187-projects/completed-projects/438-2010-09-13-07-24-49438, accessed 3 August 2021.
749 - Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, “Directive of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 385 On the Adoption of the Concept ofState Economic Program for the Management of Spent Nuclear Fuel of the Domestic Nuclear Power Plant for the Period until 2024”,
5 June 2019, see https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/385-2019-%D1%80#Text, accessed 28 May 2021.
750 - Ibidem. Ukraine is assessing the possibility of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at France’s Orano la Hague facility, see IPFM,“Ukraine to Explore Reprocessing Its Spent Fuel in France”, last modified 3 May 2018, see http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/05/
ukraine_to_explore_reproc.html, accessed 8 June 2021.
751 - Verkhovna Rada, “Про Загальнодержавну програму зняття з експлуатації Чорнобильської АЕС та перетворення
об’єкта ‘Укриття’ на екологічно безпечну систему “ [“Law of Ukraine No. 886-VI – On the National Program for Chornobyl
NPP Decommissioning and Shelter Transformation into an Ecologically Safe System’”], Parliament of Ukraine, Approved
15 January 2009, Amended as of 1 January 2019, see https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/886-17#Text, accessed 29 May 2021.
752 - Ibidem.
753 - Ibidem.
754 - Ministry of Ecology and Natural Ressources of Ukraine, “Chonobyl’ staie brendom - v Ukraiini vpershe stvoreno logotyp zonyvidchuzhennia [Chernobyl becomes a brand - a logo for the exclusion zone is created in Ukraine]”, 19 February 2021 (in Ukrainian),see https://mepr.gov.ua/news/36869.html, accessed 29 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 under 1,000 in 2004 to nearly 200,000 in 2019.755 The Ukrainian government seeks UN World
Heritage status for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, hoping this would boost annual number ofvisitors to one million.756
The tourism campaign is under heavy criticism from scientists. The CEZ remains one of themost radiologically contaminated places on Earth. The influx of tourists not only risks exposing
thousands to radioactive dust, hot particles,757 and contaminated plants, but also disturbs theunique environment, in which scientists have been conducting research into longitudinal
effects of radiation on the flora and fauna.758
Another area of development is conservation. The removal of the human population fromthe Chernobyl zone and the subsequent restricted human access resulted in the return ofwildlife, including elk, wild boar, deer, and wolves.759 Indeed, some endangered species havebeen introduced to the CEZ for conservation purposes, including the European bison and thePrzewalski wild horse.760 In 2016, a presidential decree established the Chernobyl Radiationand Ecological Biosphere Reserve, straddling the border with Belarus.761
Some researchers dispute the “booming wildlife” thesis, however, and find evidence of anegative correlation between the size of animal populations and their exposure to ionizing
radiation. While depopulation of the CEZ might have allowed some wildlife to return toChernobyl, its abundance is significantly tempered by radiation effects.762 In addition, studies
using meta-analysis of datasets across some 30 species, found an unusually high rate ofradiation-related genetic mutation, with plants showing higher rates than animals.763 The study
suggests that transgenerational population-wide effect of radioactive contamination could besignificant, possibly in humans as well.
Wildfires, once a rarity, have become more frequent in the CEZ, most of them started byarsonists. Particularly intensive wildfires raged in the zone in April 2020, reactivating
radionuclides and sending radiation levels soaring.764 With the area becoming dryer due
755 - Tom Anstey, “A record number of people are visiting Chernobyl and Ukraine’s government is planning to welcome even more”,
Planet Attractions, 28 January 2021, see https://www.planetattractions.com/news/A-record-number-of-people-are-visiting-Chernobyland-Ukraine%E2%80%99s-government-is-planning-to-welcome-even-more/186, accessed 17 May 2021.
756 - Ibidem.
757 - Plutonium particles are of particular concern as the inhalation of a particle of several millionth of a gram can lead to lung cancer.
Plutonium cannot be detected by Geiger counters and dosimeters.
758 - Katie Mettler, “Ukraine Wants Chernobyl To Be a Tourist Trap. But Scientists Warn: Don’t Kick Up Dust”, The Washington Post,
12 July 2019, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/07/12/ukraine-wants-chernobyl-be-tourist-trap-scientists-warn-dontkick-up-dust/, accessed 17 May 2021.
759 - T.G. Deryabina, S.V. Kuchmel et al., “Long-Term Census Data Reveal Abundant Wildlife Populations at Chernobyl”, Current
Biology Magazine, Vol. 25, Issue 19, 5 October 2015, PP. R824–R826.
760 - Peter E. Schlichting, Valery Dombrovski and James C. Beasley, “Use of Abandoned Structures by Przewalski’s Wild Horses andOther Wildlife in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone”, Mammal Research, Vol. 65, No. 1, 14 August 2019, January 2020, pp. 161–165.
761 - The Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve, “Чорнобильський радіаційно-екологічний біосферний
заповідник” [“Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve”], Undated, see https://www.zapovidnyk.org.ua/index.php?fn=
novp&f=php&pid=2019-04-16-19-58-58-9209, accessed 17 May 2021.
762 - Karine Beaugelin-Seiller, Jacqueline Garnier-Laplace et al., “Dose reconstruction supports the interpretation of decreased
abundance of mammals in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone”, Scientific Reports, Vol. 10, No. 1, 21 August 2020, see https://www.nature.
com/articles/s41598-020-70699-3, accessed 8 June 2021.
763 - Anders Pape Møller and Timothy A. Mousseau, “Strong effects of ionizing radiation from Chernobyl on mutation rates”,

Scientific Reports, Vol. 5, No. 1, 10 February 2015.

764 - Jane Braxton Little, “Forest Fires Are Setting Chernobyl’s Radiation Free”, The Atlantic, 10 August 2020,see https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/, accessed 17 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 to climate change and increased human traffic in the CEZ, chances of wildfires are likely toincrease in the future.765
SAUEZM has also advertised the CEZ as an attractive site for investment in renewable energy,
particularly solar, leveraging the legacy power storage and transmission infrastructure and the
low cost of land.766 While the aim is laudable, Ukraine’s energy sector governance, incentive
structure for developing renewables, and regulatory environment remain unfavorable and are
not designed to serve any solar power ambitions in the CEZ.767

OFFSITE CHALLENGES
The long-term social, health, and environmental effects of Chernobyl are as profound as they
are diffuse and remain a matter of ongoing research and contention. Some 100 radioactive
isotopes were released into the environment as a result of the Chernobyl accident, the mostradiologically relevant of which are iodine-131, strontium-90, caesium-137, and plutonium-239,‑240, and -241. While the half-life of iodine-131 is only 8 days, strontium-90 and caesium‑137
have a half-life of 29 and 30 years respectively, and plutonium-239—24,000 years. Plutonium
contamination is largely concentrated in the area close to the accident site, where theconcentration of plutonium in the soil is higher than that attributed to nuclear weapons
test fallout, for instance, from the former Semipalatinsk test range in Kazakhstan.768 Other
radioactive elements were carried far and wide by the prevailing winds and deposited on soil
and vegetation by the rains. According to various estimates, about 40 percent of European
territory has been contaminated by caesium-137, potentially affecting some 400 million
people.769
As of 2004, nearly 8.4 million people were exposed to the Chernobyl radiation in Belarus,
Russia, and Ukraine.770 Some 120,000 people have been resettled from the highly contaminatedarea immediately after the accident, and a further 220,000 in subsequent years.771 Twenty
years after the accident, some 5 million people, including 1 million children, were still living
in contaminated areas in the former Soviet Union, including 270,000 in “strict control zones,”
765 - Ibidem.
766 - SAUZEM, “Investytsiynyy proekt Chornobyl Solar” [“Investment Project Chernobyl Solar”], 31 October 2016 (in Ukrainian),see http://dazv.gov.ua/vidnovliuvana-enerhetyka/investitsijnij-proekt-chornobyl-solar-yakim-peredbacheno-budivnitstvo-parkusonyachnoji-energetiki-u-zoni-vidchuzhennya.html, accessed 17 May 2021.
767 - Sergej Sumlenny, “Eine Riesenverschuldung gegenüber den Erneuerbaren: Selenskyjs Energiepolitik könnte katastrophale Folgen
für die Ukraine haben“ [“A gigantic debt towards renewables: Zelenskyi’s Energy Policy Could Have Catastrophic Consequences for
Ukraine”], Heinrich-Böll Foundation, in Ukraine-Analysen, 17 February 2021 (in German), Issue 246, see https://laender-analysen.
de/ukraine-analysen/246/eine-riesenverschuldung-gegenueber-den-erneuerbaren-selenskyjs-energiepolitik-koennte-katastrophalefolgen-fuer-die-ukraine/, accessed 28 May 2021.
768 - Yasuyuki Muramatsu, Werner Rühm et al., “Concentrations of 239Pu and 240Pu and Their Isotopic Ratios Determined by ICP-MS in
Soils Collected from the Chernobyl 30-km Zone”, Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 34, No. 14, 1 July 2000.
769 - European Commission, “Atlas of Caesium Deposition on Europe After the Chernobyl Accident”, 1998, see https://op.europa.eu/
fr/publication-detail/-/publication/110b15f7-4df8-49a0-856f-be8f681ae9fd, accessed 27 June 2021; and Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016 – The
Other Report on Chernobyl – An Independent Evaluation of the Health-Related Effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster”, Version 1.1,
31 March 2016, see https://www.ianfairlie.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/chernobyl-report-version-1.1.pdf, accessed 8 June 2021.
770 - UN-OCHA, “Chernobyl: Needs Remain Great 18 Years After Nuclear Accident”, United Nations Office for the Coordinationof Humanitarian Affairs, Press Release, IHA/896, 26 April 2004, see https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/iha896.doc.htm,
accessed 9 June 2021.
771 - The Chernobyl Forum, “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to
the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, The Chernobyl Forum: 2003–2005, IAEA, April 2006, pp. 10–11,
see https://hps.org/documents/chernobyl_legacy_booklet.pdf, accessed 17 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 although since, the number likely decreased due to low birth rates and population outflow.772
Some 600,000 had been registered as liquidators, people who have participated in dealing withthe aftermath of the accident in 1986–1989, 240,000 of whom worked directly in mitigation
activities at the reactor and in the exclusion zone.773 Many of these people received high initial
doses of radiation, others sustained long-term exposure to low-dose radiation, but at levels
well above normal.
Officially, the death toll of the world’s worst nuclear accident is astonishingly low. Prior to 2005
only some 50 deaths were directly attributed to the accident: 28 people, firemen and cleanup
crew, perished from acute radiation sickness in the first three months after the accident, twodied from injuries sustained in the explosion, the other 20 or so died over the next months andyears.774
The long-term health effects among exposed populations—cancers, cataracts, diseases of
the cardiovascular and digestive systems—are vastly more widespread and more difficult toestimate given that they have and will unfold over decades and over generations. So are thepsychological effects of Chernobyl.
In 2006, a number of reports, prepared under UN auspices, estimated that the Chernobyl
accident will result in some 9,000 excess cancer deaths—4,000 in Belarus, Russia, andUkraine and 5,000 outside of the former Soviet Union—from radiation-induced cancers.775
These mortality figures have been disputed as overly conservative by a number of independent
experts.776 According to the analysis of prominent U.S. nuclear physicist Richard Garwin,
based on the overall radiation release and per capita exposure, the real death toll would likely
be closer to 24,000.777 A 2009-report by a team of Russian and Belarussian scientists claimed
that Chernobyl’s death toll from radiation-related diseases would surpass 200,000 in Europe

772 - UN-OCHA, “Chernobyl: Needs Remain Great 18 Years After Nuclear Accident”, 26 April 2004, op. cit.; and The Chernobyl Forum,“Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to the Governments of Belarus, theRussian Federation and Ukraine”, April 2006, op. cit.
773 - Burton Bennett, Michael Rapacholi and Zhanat Carr, “Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care
Programmes”, Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum, Expert Group “Health”, World Health Organization, 2006.
774 - IAEA, “Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions”, International Atomic Energy Agency, 7 November 2016,see https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/chernobyl/faqs, accessed 17 May 2021; and United Nations, “Chernobyl: The True Scaleof the Accident – 20 Years Later, UN Report Provides Definitive Answers, Ways to Repair Lives”, Press Release, 6 September 2005,
see https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm, accessed 29 June 2021.
775 - The Chernobyl Forum, “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to
the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, op. cit.; and Bennett, Rapacholi and Carr, “Health Effects of theChernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programmes”, WHO, 2006, op. cit. See also UN, “UN issues landmark health report on
Chernobyl: excess cancer cases, deaths”, Press Release, 18 April 2006, see https://news.un.org/en/story/2006/04/175672-un-issueslandmark-health-report-chernobyl-excess-cancer-cases-deaths, accessed 29 June 2021; and UN, “Chernobyl: The True Scale of theAccident”, 6 September 2005, see https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm, accessed 17 May 2021; and WHO, “World HealthOrganization report explains the health impacts of the world’s worst-ever civil nuclear accident”, 26 April 2006,
see https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr20/en/, accessed 9 June 2021.
776 - Ian Fairlie and David Sumner, “The Other Report on Chernobyl (TORCH) – An Independent Scientific Evaluation of Health andEnvironmental Effects 20 Years after the Nuclear Disaster Providing Critical Analysis of a Recent Report by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO)”, 6 April 2006; and op. cit. Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016 – The Other
Report on Chernobyl – An Independent Evaluation of the Health-Related Effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster”, March 2016.
777 - Richard L. Garwin, “Outside View: Chernobyl’s real toll”, UPI, 9 November 2005, see https://www.upi.com/DefenseNews/2005/11/09/Outside-view-Chernobyls-real-toll/35281131572398/, accessed 17 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 and approach 20,000 in the rest of the world.778 While the report met a critical reception, theauthors’ claim that the Soviet regime intentionally obscured real numbers in the three years
following the accident, has much credence, as does the emphasis on the long gestation periodof many radiation-induced illnesses. Other independent reports estimate expected death tollfrom radiogenic cancers alone at 40,000 globally over the next 50 years.779
Thyroid cancer, caused by the absorption of radioactive iodine primarily in children andadolescents, remains a major health risk for the populations of Belarus, Ukraine, and the fourmost contaminated regions of Russia. Between 1991 and 2005, some 6,800 cases of thyroid
cancer were diagnosed among those who were under 18 in 1986, an incidence much higher than
the rate among the average population.780 The latest UN study on the subject found an increasein thyroid cancer cases in the same group over the period 1991–2015 of almost 20,000 cases,
with incidence among females four times higher than among males.781 Although thyroid cancer
is treatable by surgery and medication with a resulting survival rate of 99 percent,782 thephysical and psychological toll of illness and treatment on children and their families is one of
the real costs that evades death statistics.
The long-term transgenerational effects of continued exposure to radioactive elements
are among the most hotly contested consequences of Chernobyl. A recent study of some
130 children born to parents involved in the Chernobyl cleanup found no transgenerational
effects of exposure to radiation.783 These findings are contradicted by many studies byscientists from the National Academies of Science of Ukraine and Belarus that demonstrate arise in chromosomal disorders and congenital anomalies among children born to or aborted by
women from contaminated areas in the former Soviet Union.784
The extent of transgenerational effects of radiation exposure might be obscured by the highrates of abortions among exposed women. The IAEA estimated that between 100,000 and
200,000 abortions were related to Chernobyl radiation concerns in the year following theaccident in Western Europe alone.785 While data are sparse for the former Soviet Union, the778 - Alexey B. Nesterenko, Vassily B. Nesterenko and Alexey V. Yablokov, “Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe
for Public Health” in “Chernobyl Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”, Annals of the New York Academyof Sciences, Volume 1181, Issue 1, 30 November 2009. These widely different estimates of the Chernobyl radiation-related deaths stemfrom a disagreement about the linear no-threshold hypothesis of radiation impact, that is, whether the harmful effects of the radiation
are proportional to the dozes receives, or whether below a certain threshold, low doses of radiation cease to be harmful.
779 - Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016 – An Independent Scientific Evaluation of the Health-Related Effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear
Disaster”, March 2016, op. cit.
780 - UNSCEAR, “Evaluation of Data on Thyroid Cancer in Regions Affected by the Chernobyl Accident – A White Paper To Guide the
Scientific Committee’s Future Programme of Work”, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, 2018,see http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2017/Chernobyl_WP_2017.pdf, accessed 8 June 2021.
781 - Ibidem, v, 9. Although some of increase is attributed to the increased spontaneous rate of thyroid cancer due to the aging of thecohort, as well as to the improved diagnostic techniques, the fraction attributed to radiation exposure is estimated at 60 percent for
those evacuated and 25 percent for non-evacuated. Ibidem, 12.
782 - The United Nations, “Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident”, 6 September 2005, op. cit.
783 - Meredith Yeager, Mitchell J. Machiela et al., “Lack of transgenerational effects of ionizing radiation exposure from the Chernobyl
accident”, Science, Vol. 372, Issue 6543, 14 May 2021.
784 - G. Lazjuk, P. Verger et al., “The congenital anomalies registry in Belarus: a tool for assessing the public health impact of theChernobyl accident”, Reproductive Toxicology, Volume 17, Issue 6, November–December 2003, pp. 659–666; and O.F. Vozianov, V.G.
Bebeshko and D.A. Vazyka, “Medychni Naslidky Avarii na Chornobyl’s’kii Atomnii Elektrostantsii” [“Medical Consequences of theAccident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant”], National Research Center for Radiation Medicine of the National Academy ofMedical Sciences of Ukraine, 2007.
785 - The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, “Lessons of Chernobyl: SNM Members Try to Contaminate World Threatened by Fallout”,
Part II, Vol. 28, No. 6, June 1987, p.6, see https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/jnumed/28/6/933.full.pdf, accessed 10 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 incidence of Chernobyl-related abortions was likely much higher, contributing to the drastic
collapse of birth rates between 1986 and 1992—nearly halving in the affected areas of Belarus—
with long-term demographic effects.786 Chernobyl’s impact on reproductive health continues: arecently published study of exposed women who emigrated to Israel shows that they are more
likely to be childless, have less children, undergo fertility treatment, and experience post-natal
anemia than the general population.787
Chernobyl’s consequences for public health, however, reach far beyond the direct effects ofradiation exposure.788 Psychological trauma caused by the disaster, resettlement, loss ofcommunity and livelihood, resulted in significantly higher rates of mental illness, including
depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, among the population affected by Chernobyl thannormal. Beyond socio-psychological trauma, there is evidence of direct neuropsychiatriceffects of ionizing radiation on the brain, including cerebrovascular pathology and cognitive
impairment.789 In 2018, the Ukrainian government reported estimates that mental illness
was about twice as prevalent and by some estimates suicide rates are as much as 20 times
higher among the Chernobyl liquidators compared to the general population.790 In Ukraine,
20 years after the Chernobyl disaster began, some 83 percent of the population affected by theaccident had experienced some form of adverse health consequences; among the liquidators,
the number is 92 percent.791
Economic costs of the accident for the countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly for
Belarus and Ukraine, have been staggering. Fledgling nations struggling through a severe postSoviet transitional crisis, Belarus and Ukraine allocated significant portions of their statebudget to Chernobyl-related projects, benefits, and programs. Even so, they were unable toadequately address the public health and environmental crisis, compounding their negative
consequences. In 1991, Chernobyl-related expenditures accounted for more than 22 percentof the Belarusian budget, a figure that gradually declined to about 6 percent in 2002.792
Overall, Belarus spent some US$13 billion on the Chernobyl account between 1991 and 2003, a
disproportionate financial burden for a nation of only 10 million.793 Ukraine has been spending
up to 15 percent of its budget in the Chernobyl-related programs in the 1990s, and up to
786 - Angelina I. Nyagy, “Health of Survivors in Ukraine in 25-Years Dynamics After the Chernobyl Catastrophe”, Association‘Physicians of Chernobyl’, as Presented at “The Chernobyl Catastrophe: Taking Stock of 25 Years of Ecological and Health Damages”,
Berlin, 4–10 April 2011; and Aleg Cherp, Angelina Nyagu et al., “The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident – A
Strategy for Recovery”, Report Commissioned by UNDP and UNICEF with the support of UN-OCHA and WHO, 6 February 2002,
see https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/strategy_for_recovery.pdf, accessed 10 June 2021.
787 - Julie Cwikel, Ruslan Sergienko et al., “Reproductive Effects of Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation: A Long-Term Follow-Upof Immigrant Women Exposed to the Chernobyl Accident”, Journal of Clinical Medicine, 8 June 2020, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC7356322/, accessed 9 June 2021.
788 - The United Nations, “Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident”, 6 September 2005, op. cit.
789 - K. Loganovsky, M. Bomko et al, “Mental Health and Neuropsychiatric Effects of the Chornobyl Accident – A 30 Year Aftermathand Fukushima Projections”, in WHO and National Research Center for Radiation Medicine of the National Academy of Medical
Sciences of Ukraine, “Health Effects of the Chornobyl Accident – 30 Years Aftermath”, International Conference, 18–19 April 2016,p. 94, see https://nrcrm.gov.ua/downloads/abstracts_18_04_16.pdf, accessed 4 August 2021.
790 - Chornobyl Center, “What are the consequences of the Chornobyl accident?”, 18 January 2018,see http://www.chornobyl.net/en/what-are-the-consequences-of-the-chornobyl-accident/, accessed 9 June 2021.
791 - National Research Center for Radiation Medicine of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, “Medychni Naslidky
Avarii na Chornobyl’s’kii Atomnii Elektrostantsii” [“Medical Consequences of the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant”],
2007 op. cit., p.784.
792 - The Chernobyl Forum, “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to theGovernments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, April 2006, p.33, op. cit.
793 - Ibidem.

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7 percent in the 2000s.794 From 1991 to 2015, Ukraine’s expenditures on the Chernobyl accountamounted to more than US$20 billion.795
These figures do not reflect indirect economic losses in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine causedby the depression of economic activity in the contaminated areas, nation-wide effects on
agriculture, forestry, and fishing, as well as the public health crisis. Ukraine estimated its
economic losses—including heavy indirect losses (non-production in power engineering,
manufacturing, agricultural, forest, water, and fishing industries, etc)—in the order of
US$232 billion over the two and a half decades following the accident.796 Countless headsof livestock and harvests of agricultural produce have been contaminated in the former
Soviet Union and across Europe. For instance, immediately following the accident, the U.K.
government imposed a ban on slaughter and movement of sheep, affecting some 9,700 farms
and 4 million sheep, in Cumbria, Scotland, Northern Wales, and Northern Ireland.797 The
controls have been fully lifted only in 2012.798 In southern Germany, wild game and mushrooms
are still found contaminated with caesium-137 to several times the legal limits for sales.799 The
government of Saxony still requires all wild boar hunted for sale to be tested for caesium-137;
in 2014, one in three boars was still found too radioactive to consume.800
Finally, there are irreversible cultural losses inflicted by the disaster. The Chernobyl site issituated in the Polissya, an isolated marshy region straddling northern Ukraine and southern
Belarus. Polissya’s relative remoteness, lack of urbanization and industrialization—save forthe nuclear power plant—allowed for the preservation of archaic rural cultural practices
and artifacts. Much of this cultural tradition has been lost as communities disintegrated andsettlements were abandoned. A few dedicated ethnographers, like Rostyslav Omeliashko,
launched expeditions to record the local dialects, oral traditions, and cultural practices fromresidents who remained in or returned to the CEZ and from those who had been resettled, as
well as collect material relicts.801 Due to their efforts, much been rescued from oblivion andpreserved as museum pieces and ethnographic collections. Still, a unique bit of world cultural
heritage has been wiped out by the Chernobyl explosions forever.

794 - Ibidem.
795 - Tetiana Yarmoshchuk, “Na likvidatsiiu ‘Chornobylia’ Ukraiina vtratyla tsilyi richnyi biudzhet” [“Ukraine spent its entire annual
budget on Chernobyl”], Radio Liberty, 14 April 2016, see https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/27673107.html, accessed 10 June 2021.
796 - Ministry of Ukraine for Emergencies, “Twenty-five Years after Chornobyl Accident: Safety for the Future”, National Report ofUkraine, 2011, see http://www.chernobyl.info/Portals/0/Docs/ua-25-chornobyl-angl-c.pdf, accessed 9 June 2021.
797 - Steve Wearne, “The Removal of Post-Chernobyl Sheep Controls”, UK Food Standards Agency, FSA 12/03/06, 20 March 2012,see https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/fsa120306.pdf, accessed 10 June 2021.
798 - BBC News, “Post-Chernobyl disaster sheep controls lifted on last UK farms”, 1 June 2012,see https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-18299228, accessed 10 June 2021.
799 - BfS, “Radioactive contamination of mushrooms and wild game”, German Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Undated,
see https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/mushrooms-game.html, accessed 14 June 2021.
800 - Ministry for Energy, Climate Protection, Environment and Agriculture of Saxony, “Radiocäsiumbelastung vonWildschweinfleisch” [“Radiocesium contamination of wild boar meat”], Undated, see http://www.wald.sachsen.de/radiocaesiumbelastung-von-wildschweinfleisch-4538.html, accessed 10 June 2021; and Rachel Nuwer, “Radioactive Boars Are Roaming
Around Germany”, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 September 2014, see https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/radioactive-boarsare-roaming-around-germany-180952586/, accessed 10 June 2021.
801 - Kate Brown, “A Historian in the Dead Zone”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 September 2005,
see https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-historian-in-the-dead-zone/, accessed 29 May 2021.

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NUCLEAR POWER AND
CRIMINAL ENERGYINTRODUCTION
Recent events shed light on ways in which criminality affects the nuclear industry. Three
major corruption scandals involving American nuclear energy companies made headlines in
2020. In South Carolina, SCANA Corporation, its subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas
and members of their senior management were prosecuted amid allegations of fraud in thefailed VC Summer nuclear expansion project802 . The other two cases involved two companies
in Illinois and Ohio, Exelon’s subsidiary Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and FirstEnergy
Solutions respectively, both of which were accused of bribing congressmen to pass pro-nuclear
legislation and obtain state subsidies803 . While ComEd paid a fine to settle with Illinois federalcharges and SCANA pleaded guilty to fraud charges in South Carolina, investigations in Ohio
are still ongoing.
Criminality in the nuclear energy sector, like in the corporate world at large, has taken the
shape of corrupt practices such as bribery and fraud. Other notable large-scale corruption
cases have taken place across all regions of the world, and this phenomenon can be traced backto the late 1980s, as exemplified with the Transnuklear Affair which involved several actors
from the nuclear industry across Europe in a bribery and nuclear-waste trafficking scheme.
Parliamentary Enquiry Commissions were established in Belgium, Germany804 , and in theEuropean Parliament805.
In addition to corruption, the involvement of organized crime groups as well as incidents, suchas insider sabotage and theft, underscore other crime dimensions which affect the nuclear
energy sector. Among other incidents which have taken place on nuclear sites: a Japanese
Yakuza boss dispatched workers, including his own Yakuza subordinates, to nuclear power

802 - United States District Court of the District of South Carolina, “Jury Trial Demand—United States Securities andExchange Commission v. Scana Corporation, Dominion Energy South Carolina Inc. (f/k/a South Carolina Electric & Gas
Company), Kevin B. Marsh and Stephen A. Byrne”, 27 February 2020, see https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2020/scanacomplaint-022720.pdf, accessed 26 August 2021.
803 - Dan Gearino, “Illinois and Ohio Bribery Scandals Show the Perils of Mixing Utilities and Politics”, Inside Climate News,
26 July 2020, see https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26072020/ohio-illinois-bribery-scandals-utilities-climate-changecommonwealth-edison-firstenergy-householder/; and Cassandra Jeffery and M. V. Ramana, “Big money, nuclear subsidies, and systemic
corruption”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 February 2021, see https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/big-money-nuclear-subsidies-andsystemic-corruption/, both accessed 7 June 2021.
804 - Deutscher Bundestag, “Kernenergie auf dem Prüfstand: Sichere Energiequelle oder nicht beherrschbares Risiko? Bericht des2. Untersuchungsausschusses der 11. Wahlperiode des Deutschen Bundestages (‘Transnuklear/Atomskandal’)”, Bd. 1 and 2, 1991.
805 - Gerhard Schmid, “Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry on the handling and transport of nuclear material– On the result of the Enquiry”, European Parliament Working Documents, 24 June 1988; and Mycle Schneider, “Transnuklearaffäre—Über die Arbeit des Untersuchungsausschusses im EP”, November 1988.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 plant construction sites all over Japan from as early as 2007806; there have also been recent
insider sabotage cases in Belgium807 as well as cases of material theft in Russia808.
Fraudulent and criminal activities in the nuclear industry entail significant potential and realconsequences for the public. Corruption and associated rent-seeking behaviors can also affectsafety and security within nuclear power plants809. Furthermore, bribery- and fraud-cases suchas those in South Carolina, Illinois and Ohio increase the capital- and production-costs ofnuclear energy, which either the rate- or the taxpayer pays for.810 As Richard Tanter, Professor
at the University of Melbourne, puts it, “[w]idespread corruption of the nuclear industry has
profound social and political consequences resulting from the corrosion of public trust incompanies, governments, and energy systems themselves”.811
Following a literature review on criminality in the nuclear energy sector, this chapter elaborates
upon a typology of prominent illegal practices in the nuclear industry, focusing on bribery of
public and company officials, as well as fraud cases relating to counterfeit or fraudulent items.
The first part of the chapter focuses on cases that have been investigated and/or have cometo trial between 2010 and 2020, either involving companies from or having taken place in the2020 Top-8 nuclear power fleets (by operating capacity), the United States, France, China,
Russia, South Korea, Canada, Ukraine, and Japan.
The second part of the chapter provides, without any specific timeframe, a cross-country
comparison of events involving sabotage and organized crime on nuclear power plant sites inJapan, Russia, and the U.S.
In addition to its constrained geographical focus and timeframe, this chapter is limited inother ways. Firstly, the analyzed cases represent only a fraction of the events having occurredin the selected countries. Additionally, the second section examines cases of insider attacks,
and threats targeting nuclear power plants specifically, thereby excluding all outsider attacks
and all fuel chain facilities, from uranium processing to plutonium separation plants. While,as illustrated in the following literature review, nuclear terrorism and cyber-attacks represent
an identified, increasing threat to the industry, they are not examined in this first analysis.
Finally, considering that this review relies on open-source information and focuses primarilyon confirmed cases, it offers only incomplete information and most likely constitutes anunderestimation of the phenomenon.
806 - Jake Adelstein, “How the Yakuza and Japan’s Nuclear Industry Learned to Love Each Other”, The Atlantic, 24 May 2012,see https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/how-yakuza-and-japans-nuclear-industry-learned-love-eachother/327691/, accessed 7 June 2021.
807 - Thomas Hegghammer and Andreas Hoelstad Daehli, “Insiders and Outsiders: a Survey of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Facilities”,
in Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan (eds.), “Insider Threats”, 2017, Cornell University Press.
808 - Alex P. Schmid and Robert Wesley, “Possible Causes and Motives of Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism in the Light of Empirical
Data on Smuggling Incidents of Nuclear Materials”, in Jeff Victoroff (ed.), “Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the
Genesis of Terrorism”, 2006, IOS.
809 - Mihály Fazekas, Zsolt Főző and István János Tóth, “The Corruption Risks of the Nuclear Power Plants: What Can We
Expect in Case of Paks II?”, Corruption Research Center Budapest, on behalf of Energiaklub Climate Police Institute and Applied
Communications, October 2014, see https://energiaklub.hu/files/study/corruption_risks_paks2.pdf, accessed 26 June 2021.
810 - Cassandra Jeffery and M. V. Ramana, “Big money, nuclear subsidies, and systemic corruption”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
12 February 2021, op. cit.; and Dan Gearino, “Illinois and Ohio Bribery Scandals Show the Perils of Mixing Utilities and Politics”, Inside
Climate News, 26 July 2020, op. cit.
811 - Richard Tanter, “After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry”, Asian Perspective, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Vol. 37, No. 4, October–December 2013, see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286345864_After_
Fukushima_A_Survey_of_Corruption_in_the_Global_Nuclear_Power_Industry, accessed 29 August 2021.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Research on the topic of criminality in the nuclear energy sector has mainly focused on thethreat of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities. Experts have assessed possible scenarios of
outsider and insider attacks perpetuated at various types of nuclear sites812, especially those
producing and/or storing weapon-grade materials813 . Armed assaults, sabotage and plane-crash
scenarios specifically targeting nuclear infrastructures have become a growing concern since
9/11 for experts and governments alike.814 Similarly, academic research has looked into the threatof cyber-attacks targeting nuclear facilities (probability assessments and recommendations
on how to counter the threat).815 The U.S.-based organizations, the National Consortiumfor the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (NTI) have developed databases gathering verified information on 80 confirmed
physical attacks on nuclear facilities between 1961 and 2014 and 23 cyberattacks between 1990
and 2016 targeting the nuclear energy sector.816
There has also been scholarly interest for the topic of nuclear trafficking with researchrelying upon the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s Incident and Trafficking
Database (ITDB) factsheets, the academic Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan
Radiation Sources (DTSO) and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS)’ Global Incidents
and Trafficking Database—the latter being the only publicly available database on the matter.
According to the latest IAEA ITDB factsheet, the database has recorded 3,686 confirmed
incidents between 1993 and 31 December 2019, all reported by some of the currently
139 participating States; there were 290 incidents classified as “confirmed or likely act oftrafficking or malicious use”, 1,023 incidents for which a link with trafficking/malicious use
cannot be established nor excluded, and 2,373 cases unrelated to trafficking/malicious use.817
Science writer Richard Stone has described the post-Cold War trafficking phenomenon
as a “real and dangerous” issue in the Black Sea Region.818 He and other scholars, includingLouise Shelley, Robert Orttung, William Potter and Elena Sokova, pointed out that wellorganized, transnational, criminal groups engage in nuclear and radioactive materials

812 - Thomas Hegghammer and Andreas Hoelstad Daehli, “Insiders and Outsiders: a Survey of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Facilities,”
2017, op. cit.
813 - Matthew Bunn and Dmitri Kovchegin, “Nuclear Security in: Can Progress be Sustained?”, Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 24,
No. 5-6, 2018, pp. 527-551.
814 - Eric Guéret, “Sécurité nucléaire : le grand mensonge”, Arte France, 2015 ; and French National Assembly, “Rapport fait au nom
de la Commission d’enquête sur la sûreté et la sécurité des installation nucléaires”, Report prepared on behalf of the Commission of
inquiry on nuclear safety and security, submitted 28 June 2018 (in French), see https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/15/rapports/
cenucl/l15b1122-ti_rapport-enquete, accessed 26 June 2021.
815 - Julian Rrushi and Roy Campbell, “Detecting Cyber Attacks On Nuclear Power Plants”, University of Illinois, in International
Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection, “Critical Infrastructure Protection II”, edited by Mauricio Papa and Sujeet Shenoi,
Springer US, 2008; also Jong Woo Park and Seung Jun Lee, “Probabilistic safety assessment-based importance analysis of cyberattacks on nuclear power plants”, Nuclear Engineering and Technology, vol. 51, no. 1, February 2019, pp. 138–145.
816 - START, “Nuclear Facilities Attack Database (NuFAD)”, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, Undated, see https://www.start.umd.edu/nuclear-facilities-attack-database-nufad; and NTI, “References for Cyber
Incidents at Nuclear Facilities”, Nuclear Threat Initiative, see https://www.nti.org/analysis/tools/table/133/, both accessed 7 June 2021.
817 - IAEA, “IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database (ITDB) – Incidents of nuclear and other radioactive material out of regulatory
control”, 2020 Fact Sheet, 2020 see https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/20/02/itdb-factsheet-2020.pdf, accessed 12 June 2021.
818 - Richard Stone, “Nuclear Trafficking: ‘A Real and Dangerous Threat’”, Science, vol. 292, Issue 5522, 1 June 2001, pp. 1632–1636.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 trafficking.819 Nonetheless, data collected by CNS since 2013 does not include theft incidents
having taken place at nuclear power plants. Considering that only a small number of countries
consistently report these incidents (i.e. Russia and former Soviet Republics do not), theevolution of this issue cannot be evaluated.
Finally, the topic of corruption in the nuclear industry has received limited attention. While
this is the first time the WNISR is devoting an entire chapter to criminal activities in the
nuclear industry, the WNISR has regularly mentioned major corruption cases in various places
around the world. WNISR2020, for example, features “corrupt” 14 times in connection withcorruption cases involving nine countries on four continents.820
Richard Tanter appears to be the only scholar having documented cases of corruption in this
sector on a global scale; however, his analysis covers only a short period of time, that is 2012 tomid-2013.821 Tanter has found that “major corruption incidents occurred in the nuclear powerindustry in every country currently seeking to export nuclear reactors: the United States,
Canada, Japan, South Korea, Russia, France, and China”.822 These are also seven of the Top-8
nuclear power fleets.
Other journalists and experts have also investigated corruption in the nuclear industry atnational levels in China823 , Japan824 , Russia825, South Korea826, and the U.S.827. Overall, thisresearch identifies some specific factors facilitating corrupt practices in the nuclear industry:
the special status of the nuclear industry in nuclear weapon countries and the tradition of
restricted access to information,828 exceptional corporate-governance rules undermining

819 - Louise Shelley and Robert Orttung, “Criminal acts: How organized crime is a nuclear smuggler’s new best friend”, Bulletin of theAtomic Scientists, vol. 62, no. 5, 2006, pp. 22–23, see https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/062005007, accessed 31 August 2021;
and William Potter and Elena Sokova, “Illicit nuclear trafficking in the NIS: What’s new? What’s true?”, The Nonproliferation Review,

vol. 9, no. 2, 2002, pp. 112–120.

820 - Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Slovakia, U.S.
821 - Richard Tanter, “After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry”, University of Melbourne,
published in Asian Perspective, vol. 37, no. 4, October 2013, pp. 475–500; Richard Tanter, “Nuclear corruption 2012 to date”, Nautilus
Peace and Security Weekly Report, 4 July 2012, see https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/nuclear-corruption-2012-to-date/,
accessed 22 June 2021.
822 - Richard Tanter, “After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry”, 2013, op. cit.
823 - Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory transparency—How China can learn from Japan’s nuclear regulatory failures?”, Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 16, no. 6, 2012, pp. 3574–3578.
824 - Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory failures for nuclear safety–the bad example of Japan–implication for the rest of world”,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 16, no. 5, June 2012, pp. 2610–2617.
825 - Andrey Ozharovsky, “Corruption: A new Russian Fukushima in the making?”, Bellona, 27 September 2011, see https://bellona.
org/news/russian-human-rights-issues/access-to-information/2011-09-corruption-a-new-russian-fukushima-in-the-making ;Kendra Ulrich, Jehki Harkonen and Brian Blomme, “Rosatom risks—Exposing the troubled history of Russia’s state nuclear
corporation”, Greenpeace International, October 2014, see https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200313133935/http://p3-raw.
greenpeace.org/hungary/PageFiles/636986/rosatom_risks.pdf, both accessed 7 June 2021.
826 - Philip Andrews-Speed, “South Korea’s nuclear power industry: recovering from scandal”, The Journal of World Energy
Law & Business, vol. 13, no. 1, March 2020, pp. 47–57; Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement
Markets: International Experiences”, Korea Development Institute, 15 December 2014, see https://www.kdi.re.kr/kdi_eng/publications/publication_view.jsp?pub_no=13874, accessed 31 August 2021.
827 - Cassandra Jeffery and M. V. Ramana, “Big money, nuclear subsidies, and systemic corruption”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
12 February 2021, see https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/big-money-nuclear-subsidies-and-systemic-corruption/, accessed 7 June 2021.
828 - Kendra Ulrich, Jehki Harkonen and Brian Blomme, “Rosatom risks: Exposing the troubled history of Russia’s state nuclear
corporation”, Greenpeace International, October 2014, see https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200313133935/http://p3-raw.
greenpeace.org/hungary/PageFiles/636986/rosatom_risks.pdf, accessed 12 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 accountability,829 and the apparent lack of independence of regulatory authorities in many
countries.830
The broader literature on energy policies and large projects also provides insights into otherfactors contributing to corrupt practices in the nuclear energy sector. One study finds bribery
risks are reinforced because the oligopolistic nature of energy and infrastructure markets
generates little to no competition between sellers which often creates “bilateral monopolistic”
relationships between buyers and sellers.831 Other assessments find that the long-lasting natureand the scale of these projects as well as the involvement of multiple actors, including several
layers of subcontractors, further increases misuse potential.832
The same concerns seemingly apply to vendor and miscellaneous fraud, considering that the
IAEA and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also find thatthe “increased complexity and length of supply chains” are contributing factors to the presenceof Counterfeit or Fraudulent Items (CFIs) on the nuclear energy market.833 Nonetheless, thescale of this issue is hardly quantifiable. A 2016-IAEA report includes information on theexperience of Canada, Slovenia, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. in dealing with CFIs; the2019-edition contains an appendix with a non-exhaustive list of documents detailing cases
which have involved the discovery of CFIs on the market and/or in nuclear power plants andaffected at least seven countries since at least the 1990s. It also mentions that the World
Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) was made aware of 10 incidents involving fraudulent
and counterfeited parts over the period 2012 to early 2016: “Eight of the ten CFI related event
reports were from WANO Atlanta Centre834 plants. WANO reported that it is likely that plants
in other WANO regional centres have experienced similar issues with counterfeit parts thathave not been reported.”835
Some experts have expressed concerns about countries with widespread corruption issues.836
In Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index—based upon 13 surveys
and assessments from 12 independent institutions conducting research on governance and829 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI,
December 2014, op. cit.; and Hyomin Kim, “Reconstructing the public in old and new governance: A Korean case of nuclear energy
policy”, Public Understanding of Science, April 2014.
830 - Richard Tanter, “After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry”, Asian Perspective, 2013,
op. cit.; also Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory failures for nuclear safety–the bad example of Japan–implication for the rest ofworld”, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2012, op. cit.
831 - Mihály Fazekas, Zsolt Főző and István János Tóth, “The Corruption Risks of the Nuclear Power Plants: What Can We
Expect In Case of Paks II?”, Corruption Research Center Budapest, on behalf of Energiaklub Climate Police Institute and Applied
Communications, October 2014, https://energiaklub.hu/files/study/corruption_risks_paks2.pdf, accessed 26 June 2021.
832 - Neil Overy, “Nuclear energy in Africa”, New Frame, 1 December 2020, see https://www.newframe.com/part-two-nuclear-energyin-africa/; and Giorgio Locatelli, Giacomo Mariani et al., “Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There is an elephant in the
room!”, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 35, no 3, April 2017, p. 252–268 see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S0263786316301090, both accessed 31 August 2021.
833 - IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”, IAEA Nuclear Energy Series, March 2019, no.
NP‑T‑3.26, see https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/P1817_web.pdf, accessed 31 August 2021.
834 - WANO Atlanta Centre is located in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S.) and provides services and assistance to WANO members in the UnitedStates, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, China, United Arab Emirates, and Romania; see WANO, “Atlanta Centre”, World Association of
Nuclear Operators, Undated, see https://www.wano.info/centres/atlanta-centre, accessed 1 July 2021.
835 - IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”, March 2019, no. NP-T-3.26, op. cit.
836 - Trevor Findlay, “Nuclear Energy and Global Governance”, Routledge, 2010; Laszlo Lovei and Alastair McKechnie, “The Costsof Corruption for the Poor—The Energy Sector”, Viewpoint, World Bank, no. 207, 2000, see http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11437,
accessed 26 June 2021; and Oleg Bukharin, “Upgrading security at nuclear power plants in the newly independent states”, Princeton
University, published by The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 4, no. 2, 1997, pp. 28–39.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 business climate—18 or half of the 35 countries operating or constructing nuclear power plantson their territory rate under 50 out of 100.837 In the Bribery Payers Index (BPI, last published in2011), which surveys and rates the 28 world leading economies based on companies’ perceived
likelihood to resort to bribery when conducting business abroad, seven out of the ten worst
rated countries operate or are building nuclear power plants on their territory.838 These results
are consistent with that of BPI 2008, which reads that eight of the ten worst rated839 of 22
investigated leading economies were nuclear countries. The two worst-rated countries, both in
BPI 2008 and 2011, are the 2020 Top 2nd and 4th nuclear power generating countries, China andRussia, the latter—coming in last—also currently being the leading reactor exporting country.
Overall, the literature and data on criminality in the nuclear industry is disparate. No existing
study has examined it as a whole. Several articles, books, parliamentary investigations anddocumentaries have investigated the topics of cyberattacks, nuclear terrorism and nuclear
trafficking; however, reliable data on sabotage and nuclear theft is not systematically available.
While the topic of corruption has received more attention since the Fukushima accidents, itremains understudied even as bribery and fraud cases, such as those in South Carolina, Ohioand Illinois, break out. This chapter attempts to make a small and limited contribution to theliterature, that of providing a broader picture of prominent forms of crimes in the nuclear
energy sector, including sabotage, theft, and corrupt practices such as bribery and fraud.

TYPOLOGY OF CORRUPT PRACTICESFor this analysis, 13 cases of corrupt practices have been selected on the basis of the verifiable
degree of culpability (i.e. having resulted in external/internal investigations and/or in criminal
convictions) in publicly available data as involving representatives of the nuclear industry in
the 2020 Top-8 nuclear power fleets (by operating capacity)—hereafter Top-8—between 2010
and 2020. This list is by no means exhaustive and focuses only on corrupt practices with anotable degree of severity (significant threats to the safety in nuclear power plants and/or togood public governance), ranging from systematic/large-scale certificate falsification to briberyof public officials.
The chapter proceeds with the analysis of common features in reviewed corrupt practices—e.g. modi operandi, motives, deficiencies in regulatory structures etc.—to select and categorize
events, and in turn identify reliable patterns to understand criminality in the nuclear industry.
Fraud takes various forms; it is a holistic term.840 The fraud subsection focuses on vendor
involvement and miscellaneous cases, which have often taken the form of counterfeiting andfalsification in the nuclear industry. Accordingly, while there have been cases of employee
837 - Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2020”, see https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020,
accessed 27 June 2021.
838 - Transparency International, “Bribe Payers Index 2011”, see https://www.transparency.org/en/publications/bribe-payersindex-2011, accessed 27 June 2021.
839 - The remaining two economies were Hong Kong and Italy. The Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company (HKNIC) owns a
25-percent share in the Daya Bay nuclear power plant that sells 80 percent of its output to Hong Kong. See HKNIC, “FAQ on Daya Bay”,
Undated, see https://www.hknuclear.com/DayaBay/FAQ/Pages/FAQ.aspx#q8, accessed 8 July 2021. Italy is a former nuclear country
that phased out nuclear power after the Chernobyl accident.
840 - Maria Vassiljev and Lehte Alver, “Conception and Periodisation of Fraud Models: Theoretical Review”, presented at the 5thInternational Conference on Accounting, Auditing, and Taxation (ICAAT 2016), Atlantis Press, December 2016,see https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/icaat-16/25864767 accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 embezzlement in the nuclear sector, these incidents are not covered in the bribery subsection
unless they are specifically related to bribery.

Bribery
Nuclear Operators and Contractors
Numerous cases of nuclear utility companies, operators, and contractors in Top-8 countries
involved in the nuclear procurement market and fuel chain have been documented to haveresorted to bribery, primarily to acquire orders and contracts. Approximately half of thebribery schemes identified in publicly available data during this research can be categorized ascompany-to-company bribery.
ɆɆ International (Russia/U.S.), 2015—Former President of U.S.-based Rosatom subsidiary
TENAM Vadim Mikerin received a 4-year prison sentence for his participation in a
US$2.1-million bribery scheme involving several American companies and Rosatom
officials. Mikerin was the “fourth person who has been convicted or pleaded guilty inthe conspiracy.”841 Between 2004 and 2014, he received kickbacks from companies such
as Transport Logistics International—whose president was put on trial and convicted
in 2019—in exchange for confidential information to win contracts with the Rosatom
subsidiary.842 Simultaneously, in 2009–2012, an FBI operation concluded that Mikerin
attempted to obtain the property of a U.S. based company by “the wrongful use of force,
violence, and fear, including fear of economic loss”.843
ɆɆ International (Lithuania/U.S.), 2012—U.S. company Data Systems & Solutions (DS&S)
paid US$8.8 million to settle charges of bribing several Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power
plant officials, including its Director General, to secure long-term business contracts.844
ɆɆ International (China, South Korea, U.S.), 2012—CEO and five executives of Control
Component Inc. (CCI), an American control valve manufacturer, received up to 5-year
prison sentences each, for making “approximately 236 corrupt payments to officers
and employees of state-owned and private companies in thirty-six countries totalling
approximately [U.S.]$6.85 million and earned approximately [US]$46.5 million in net
profits from the sales related to those corrupt payments.”845 Korea Hydro and Nuclear
Power (KHNP) and Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation (JNPC) in China were among thebribe recipients.
841 - Lynh Bui, “Md. man is convicted of bribing Russian official to secure business contracts”, The Washington Post,
25 November 2019, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/md-man-convicted-of-bribing-russian-official-to-securebusiness-contracts/2019/11/25/3655d5bc-0d70-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html, accessed 27 June 2021.
842 - Ibidem; also Stella Roque, “US Court Sentences Russian Nuclear Official in $2.1 Million Bribery Scheme”, Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project, see https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/4719-us-court-sentences-russian-nuclear-official-in-21-million-bribery-scheme; and RFE/RL, “U.S. Deports Russian Man Convicted Of Nuclear Bribery Scheme”, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, 19 May 2018, see https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-deports-mikerin-russian-convicted-nuclear-bribery-scheme/29236937.html;
both accessed 27 June 2021.
843 - United States District Court of Maryland, “Affidavit by Special Agent David Gadren, Office of Inspector General, United States
Department of Energy”, Signed 24 July 2014, as part of the case “United States of America v. Vadim Mikerin”, Case 8:13-cr-00529-TDC,
Filed 30 November 2014, see https://fcpa.stanford.edu/fcpac/documents/4000/003144.pdf, accessed 26 June 2021.
844 - Richard Tanter, “Nuclear corruption 2012 to date”, Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Reports, 4 July 2012, op. cit.
845 - Southern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, “Statement of Facts”, attached to “UnitedStates of America v. Control Components, Inc.—Plea Agreement” July 2009, see https://jenner.com/system/assets/assets/4224/original/
United_States_v._Control_Components.pdf?1319828638, accessed 26 August 2021.

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While the DS&S and CCI cases can be categorized as incidents involving companies on
the supply side using bribery to secure long-term and lucrative contracts, the TENAM caseillustrates the reversed scenario, which is that of a supplier requesting bribes from customers.
Considering that TENAM is the only Russian uranium supplier in the U.S., this case shows how
in some instances, suppliers can take advantage of the paucity of actors on the procurement
market and resort to unlawful practices to make profit. Furthermore, this case also exemplifies
possible consequences of the regulations governing Rosatom’s procurements. Rosatom is
exempted from complying with the purchase and procurement standards established by
Russian Federal Law no. 94 because of its special role as a military and research complex.
Rosatom and its subsidiaries’ procurement activities are not subjected to external control, andRosatom’s internal set of purchase standards rules are weaker than those set up by federal law.
Monitoring studies found irregularities, including in Rosatom’s methods for placing orders.846
Accountability issues affect the nuclear industry in other Top-8 countries, including
China, South Korea847 and Ukraine848. For instance, the lack of transparency and scrutiny isconstitutive of a bribery scandal which found its way into court in China in 2010 and involved
China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) general manager Kang Rixin—de facto the headof the Chinese civil and military nuclear establishments—who was subsequently condemned
to life in prison for embezzlement of CNY20091.8 billion (US$2020317 million) and corruption.849

Public Officials
Several recent scandals involved other Top-8 nuclear corporations and/or their executives
bribing and being bribed by public officials (see KEPCO case hereunder). These bribes areoffered usually with the aim to obtain/arrange contracts locally and internationally. As in
Illinois and Ohio, a 2014-case disclosed in Japan involved bribes to politicians with the aim ofobtaining favorable nuclear legislation over an 18-year long period between 1972 and 1990.850
ɆɆ International (Ukraine/Czech Republic), Energoatom/Skoda, October 2020—A Swiss
court sentenced Mykola Martynenko, a former Ukrainian member of parliament and chairof the energy committee, to a 28-month prison term for aggravated money laundering
through Swiss banks. He had received multi-million-dollar kickbacks from Czech firm

846 - Ecodefense! and Transparency International, “Анализ эффективности использования денежных средств приосуществлении деятельности по размещению заказов для нужд Государственной корпорации по атомной энергии
«Росатом»” [“Analysis of the Effectiveness of Monetary Funds for the Implementation of Placement Orders for the Requirements ofRosatom (the State Corporation for Atomic Energy)”], 2010 (in Russian), see https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/assets/boell.de/
images/download_de/rosatom_final.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.
847 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI,
December 2014, op. cit.; Hyomin Kim, “Reconstructing the public in old and new governance: A Korean case of nuclear energy policy”,
Public Understanding of Science, April 2014.
848 - Tatiana Kasperski, “Nuclear power in Ukraine: Crisis or path to energy independence?”, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, 1 July 2015, see https://thebulletin.org/2015/07/nuclear-power-in-ukraine-crisis-or-path-to-energy-independence/,
accessed 31 August 2021.

849 - Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory transparency—How China can learn from Japan’s nuclear regulatory failures?”, Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2012, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 3574–3578; and Brice Predoletti, “Un haut responsable du nucléaire chinois est
soupçonné de corruption”, Le Monde, 11 August 2009 (in French), see https://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2009/08/11/unhaut-responsable-du-nucleaire-chinois-est-soupconne-de-corruption_1227513_3216.html, accessed 1 July 2021.
850 - Eric Johnston, “A closer look at Kansai Electric and its gift-giving scandal”, The Japan Times, 29 March 2020,see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/29/business/kansai-electric-gift-giving-scandal/, accessed 22 June 2021.

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Skoda JS in exchange for facilitating the acquisition of contracts with Ukrainian state
enterprise Energoatom.851
ɆɆ Japan, KEPCO, September 2019—A Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) internal
investigation revealed that the utility’s President and 19 other employees received cash
and gifts worth US$3 million from former Deputy Mayor Eiji Moriyama who aimed toencourage KEPCO to work with local suppliers he had ties with.852 Moriyama’s influence asa broker between KEPCO and Takahama businesses can be traced back to 1987.853
ɆɆ International (Canada/Libya), SNC-Lavalin, October 2014—SNC-Lavalin VicePresident Riadh Ben Aissa admitted before Switzerland’s federal-crime court to havebribed Saadi Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in exchange forsuccessfully helping SNC-Lavalin to obtain several contracts in Libya.854 SNC-Lavalin is
one of the largest engineering, procurement and construction companies in the world withlong-time involvement in nuclear projects in Canada and various other countries.
The SNC-Lavalin case exemplifies a well-documented motive for bribery of public officials
by multinationals: they usually aim to adopt “business practices of the host country” to gain
contracts. During investigations, Ben Aissa described the ways in which structural deficiencies
in the Libyan state made it difficult to conduct business “alone”: “You need a protector”.855 This
practice was also displayed in a scandal relating to the Bataan nuclear plant in the Philippinesthat was never completed.856
Since investigations of the Uramin scandal begun in 2010, similar allegations have been madeagainst AREVA and various independent investigations have found it highly plausible that
AREVA bribed public officials in Namibia, Central African Republic, and South Africa withthe hope to secure other contracts in the region—allegedly with the help of French politician
Patrick Balkany857, who has been accused of receiving kickbacks for his role as an intermediary
in Central African Republic.858
The three cases mentioned above show that political figures can play the role of intermediaries
and use their influence in favor of companies involved in the procurement market in exchange
for personal and/or political gain. In other instances, the problem of public officials’ “special
interests” vis-à-vis the nuclear industry also translates into revolving doors.
Concerns about the revolving-doors phenomenon’s possible impact over governments
and regulatory agencies’ impartiality— an issue which is well-documented in the financial

851 - Michael Shields and Natalia Zinets, “Swiss court upholds ex-Ukraine MP’s money-laundering conviction”, Reuters,
26 October 2020, see https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-swiss-ukraine-idUKKBN27B1B7, accessed 7 June 2021.
852 - Junko Fujita, “Scandal-hit head of Japan’s Kansai Electric has no plans to resign”, Reuters, 2 October 2019,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kansai-electric-scandal-idUSKBN1WH0FM, accessed 7 June 2021.
853 - Eric Johnston, “A closer look at Kansai Electric and its gift-giving scandal”, The Japan Times, 29 March 2020, op. cit.
854 - Richard L. Cassin, “Swiss court accepts guilty plea from former SNC-Lavalin exec”, The FCPA Blog, 2 October 2014,see https://fcpablog.com/2014/10/02/swiss-court-accepts-guilty-plea-from-former-snc-lavalin-exec/, accessed 7 June 2021.
855 - Attorney General of Switzerland, “Acte d’accusation en procédure simplifiée”, Procedure: SV.13.0414-THO, August 2014
(in French), see https://cdn.nawaat.org/wp-content/uploads/Acte_Accusation_riadh_Ben_Aissa_ALSTOM.pdf, accessed 1 July 2021.
856 - William Beaver, “Nuclear nightmares in the Philippines”, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 13, April 1994, pp. 271–279.
857 - Patrick Balkany has been sentenced to a five-year prison term in 2020 for other crimes.
858 - Pascal Henry, “Pièce à conviction—Affaire Areva Uramin 3 milliards en fumée”, France 3 , 2014; and Marc Eichinger andThierry Gadault, “L’homme qui en savait beaucoup trop: révélations d’un agent au cœur des secrets d’état”, Massot Edition, 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 sector859 —have also been raised in seven out of the Top-8 countries’ nuclear industries: China,
France, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, and the U.S.860
As an example, former Director General of the Finnish nuclear regulator STUK,
Jukka Laaksonen, became a high-ranking Rosatom executive a few months after he had
praised—while still with STUK—the design and construction of the Leningrad-2 plant. Only
one month after his statement, a several-hundred-ton reinforcement cage of the containmentbuilding dropped and created serious damage on the concrete frame.861

Grand Collusion Schemes, Counterfeiting, Fraud
Grand Collusion Schemes
Top-8 stakeholders in the procurement market, including operators, manufacturers, andtesting companies have collaborated in large-scale fraud and counterfeiting schemes. Two“grand-collusion” cases illustrate how, even in the absence of a bribery scheme, factors such as
the paucity of market actors, the organizational structure of nuclear operating companies andweaknesses in regulatory mechanisms can facilitate fraud.862
ɆɆ France, April 2015—The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) revealed that the bottom
and lid manufactured at AREVA’s Creusot Forge863 for the Flamanville EPR pressure vessel
displayed “very serious” defects.864 In 2016, AREVA informed ASN about “irregularities
in the manufacturing checks” at Creusot Forge, including “inconsistencies, modifications
or omissions in the production files, concerning manufacturing parameters or test
results” for about 400 components fabricated since 1965.865 EDF subsequently identified
2,982 “anomalies” in documentation related to parts integrated into 58 French reactors866(see Figure 39).

859 - Charles Ferguson, “Inside Job: the Financiers Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century”, One World, 2014.
860 - Mathias Hunter, Alex Polfliet, Patrick Cummins-Tripodi et al., “Revolving Doors and the Fossil Fuel Industry: Time to tackle
conflicts of interest in climate policy-making”, May 2018, The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament,see https://www.greens-efa.eu/files/assets/docs/report_of_revolving_doors_digital_-min.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021;
also Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory failures for nuclear safety–the bad example of Japan–implication for the rest of world”,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2012, op cit.; and Michael Dreiling and Nakamura Tomoyasu, “A Nuclear Complex? A
Network Visualization of Japan’s Nuclear Industry and Regulatory Elite, 2006 to 2012”, Socius, January 2018, vol. 4, pp. 1-4;also Tatiana Kasperski, “Nuclear power in Ukraine: Crisis or path to energy independence?”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015,
op. cit.; and Qiang Wang and Xi Chen, “Regulatory transparency—How China can learn from Japan’s nuclear regulatory failures?”,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2012, op. cit.
861 - Kendra Ulrich, Jehki Harkonen and Brian Blomme, “Rosatom risks: Exposing the troubled history of Russia’s state nuclear
corporation”, Greenpeace International, October 2014, op. cit.
862 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI,
December 2014, op. cit.
863 - AREVA went technically bankrupt and was broken up by the French government in 2017. AREVA NP that concentrated all
manufacturing activities was allocated the new (old) Framatome. AREVA NC that covered transport, reprocessing and MOX
manufacturing was relabeled Orano (the old COGEMA).
864 - Ludovic Dupin, “Le cri d’alarme de l’ASN sur le nucléaire français”, Usine Nouvelle, 20 January 2016 (in French),see http://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/le-cri-d-alarme-de-l-asn-sur-le-nucleaire-francais.N374729, accessed 12 June 2021.
865 - ASN, “AREVA has informed ASN of irregularities concerning components manufactured in its Creusot Forge plant”, Information
Notice, 4 May 2016, see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/News-releases/Irregularities-concerning-componentsmanufactured-in-its-Creusot-Forge-plant, accessed 7 June 2021.
866 - EDF, “Dossiers de fabrication”, Undated (in French), see https://www.edf.fr/groupe-edf/nos-energies/nucleaire/segregationcarbone-et-dossiers-de-fabrication-creusot-forge/dossiers-de-fabrication, accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ South Korea, November 2012—Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) reported
fraudulent documents on equipment qualification in 60 procurement contracts involving
7,682 items. A subsequent investigation led to the disclosure of the so-called JS Cable
scandal, a similar fraud scheme, which involved KHNP procurement managers, Korea
Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) Engineering & Construction Company engineers
charged with verification, executives from the Saehan testing company and from the
JS Cable manufacturing company.867
In both cases, the paucity of viable options contributed to AREVA, EDF and KEPCO working
with unreliable manufacturers. In 2005, the ASN notified AREVA about discrepancies atCreusot Forge and left them with a choice: “Your supplier has big problems, either replace it or
buy it!”.868 AREVA chose the buy-up option and subsequently struggled to implement relevantchanges at Creusot Forge. It took until late 2020 to restart forging large pieces. Similarly,
JS Cable, a company which was unfamiliar with the manufacturing of cables designed fornuclear power plants, was selected as a supplier by KEPCO in accordance with Korean
industrial policies promoting domestic vendors.869
These scandals also underscore structural problems with governance and regulations. In
the JS Cable case, incentive mechanisms for collusion were enabled by KEPCO’s governancestructure. KHNP executives were able to pressure KEPCO Engineering & Constructionengineers into fabricating fake testing reports, which subsequently incited Saehan and then
JS Cable to participate in the fraud scheme.870 The scale of collusion displayed in both cases
also underlines regulatory mechanism weaknesses. It is particularly salient in the Creusot
Forge scandal, considering that the manufacturing company continued to supply nuclear
power plants with faulty components or irregular documentation for more than ten years after
ASN, AREVA and EDF discovered discrepancies.871

867 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI, 2014,
op. cit.
868 - Sylvain Tronchet, “Cuve de l’EPR de Flamanville : l’incroyable légèreté d’Areva et EDF”, France Inter, 31 March 2017 (in French),see https://www.franceinter.fr/sciences/cuve-de-l-epr-de-flamanville-l-incroyable-legerete-d-areva-et-edf, accessed 12 June 2021.
869 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI,
2014, op. cit.
870 - Ilchong Nam and Geoffrey Rothwell, “New Nuclear Power Industry Procurement Markets: International Experiences”, KDI,
op. cit.
871 - France Inter, “Cuve de l’EPR de Flamanville : l’incroyable légèreté d’Areva et EDF”, 31 March 2017 (in French), op. cit.

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Figure 39 · Irregularities at the French Creusot Forge

Review of Manufacturing Records Relating to Components Manufactured at Creusot Forge
as of January 2019
1
Cruas-3
Cruas-1
Tricastin-2
Gravelines-2
Chinon B3
Penly-1
Gravelines-4
Chinon B2
Nogent-1
Tricastin-4
Cruas-2
Blayais-4
Fessenheim-1
Blayais-2
Chinon B-4
Dampierre-1
Tricastin-3
Gravelines-6
Gravelines-3
Saint-Laurent-2
Cattenom-4
Penly-2Chinon B1
Chooz-1
Bugey-5
Gravelines-1
Belleville-2
Chooz-2
Cattenom-2
Cruas-4
Flamanville-2
Golfech-2
Fessenheim-2
Saint-Alban-2
Paluel-3
Dampierre-3
Cattenom-3
Paluel-4
Belleville-1
Tricastin-1
Golfech-1Dampierre-4
Bugey-2
Gravelines-5
Blayais-1
Dampierre-2
Civaux-2
Bugey-4
Civaux-1
Paluel-2Saint-Laurent-1
Blayais-3
Nogent-2
St. Alban-1
Paluel-1
Flamanville-1
Cattenom-1
Bugey-3

2

3

1,50

4

2,5

1,45
1,50

2,58

1,57
1,52

2,78

1,81

3,40

2,87

2,84

2,41

1,74
1,93

Average Number of Irregularities(FA+FNC) per Component

3,16

2,21
2,97

4,47

2,27

1,84

2,23

3,88

3,10

2,61

2,00

1,83

Anomaly Report (FA)
Non-Conformance Report (FNC)

3,44

2,08
2,03

1,63
1,66

Number of Reports per Reactor

3,41

2,84

1,96

2,58
3,23

2,71
2,48
2,15

4,16

2,03

1,73
1,86

3,65

1,90
1,97

2,75

3,17
3,32

3,70
3,64

3,43
3,41
10
10

20
20

Average Number of Irregularities per Component

As of January 2019, EDF had submitted summary reports to the
ASN relating to 1,580 components installed in the 58 thenoperating reactors.They comprised a total of 879 Non-Conformance
Reports (FNC) and 2,982 Anomaly Reports (FA), or an average of
2.44 irregularities per component (up to 4.47/component on
average in one reactor). Those Irregularities affect the entire fleet
with 66.6 per reactor on average (from 27 to 122 per reactor).

2,13

1,27
1,22

0
0

5

30
30

Number of Reports per Reactor

40
40

50
50

3,78

60
60

70
70

80
80

90
90

100
100

110
110

120
120

130
130

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Source: EDF, “Dossiers de fabrication”, 2019

Notes:
Non-Conformance Report (FNC): a deviation is found which relates to one of the manufacturer’s own standards.
Anomaly Report (FA): a component fails to comply with a contractually binding or statutory requirement. 872
This figure does not cover the “Formal Deviation” category, when a deviation relates to contractually binding requirements that do not have any technicalimpact and which are obsolete. The number of Formal Deviations by reactor varies between 0 and 100 (25 on average).

872 - Definitions according to EDF France, “Creusot Forge manufacturing records”, 14 September 2017,see https://www.edf.fr/en/edf/creusot-forge-manufacturing-records, accessed 27 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Company-level Fraud
Nuclear power plants have also been supplied with counterfeit and fraudulent components
without operator consent or knowledge, which has become a growing concern for nuclear
operators.873 Among a variety of cases (see IAEA-2019 report), some incidents have taken placewhen suppliers adopted a rent-seeking behavior and/or had a deficient appreciation of safety
culture.
ɆɆ International (Canada/China/South Korea), February 2015—Ontario Power
Generation (OPG) was informed that hundreds of valve assemblies and parts supplied
to every Canadian nuclear power plant did not meet nuclear material certification.
Investigations disclosed that the valve supplier’s steel sub-supplier had not carried out
external testing for all components as well as misrepresented other test results to meet
Canadian standards for nuclear components.874 The sub-supplier also delivered components
with misrepresented results to nuclear operators in other Top-8 countries (e.g. China andSouth Korea).
ɆɆ Russia, May 2012—Former deputy head of the Research Institute for Complex Testing of
Optoelectronic Devices and Systems (NIIKI OEP)’s testing department, Alexander Murach,
was found guilty of selling counterfeit equipment used for gauging nuclear turbine
vibrations to nuclear operators. Murach had created his own company, Informtech, which
provided the counterfeited equipment’s fake certificates.875
While sharing similarities, these cases underline two features in vendor fraud identified by
the IAEA and WANO. The Informtech example illustrates a case of rent-seeking behavior withpotentially serious consequences, considering the implications for evidently unviable turbine
vibration detection equipment. The Canadian case exemplifies what the IAEA and WANO
identified as “a lack of safety culture”876. Evidence suggests that the steel supplier produced
material meeting British commercial (non-nuclear) standards and decided to lie about the
tests which they ran.877 This case resonates with the Sellafield MOX scandal, which also
involved a British company having supplied fuel pellets to Korean power plants with falsified
documentation: a U.K. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report suggests that Sellafield
employees came to normalize such fraudulent practice due to a lack of proper awarenesstraining and supervision.878

873 - IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”, March 2019, no. NP-T-3.26, op. cit.
874 - Ibidem.
875 - Richard Tanter, “After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry”, Asian Perspective, 2013, vol. 37,
no. 4, pp. 475–500.
876 - IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”, March 2019, no. NP-T-3.26, op. cit, pp. 55–56.
877 - CNSC, “Public meeting”, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Meeting held 17 June 2015 (in French and English),see http://www.ccsn.gc.ca/eng/the-commission/pdf/2015-06-17-Meeting-eDocs4788732-e.pdf, accessed 26 June 2021; also CNSC,“Public meeting”, Meeting held 7 April 2016, see http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/the-commission/pdf/2016-04-07%20-%20
Meeting%20Corrected.pdf, accessed 25 August 2021; and IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”,
March 2019, no. NP-T-3.26, op. cit.
878 - The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, “An Investigation into the Falsification of Pellet Diameter Data in the MOX
Demonstration Facility at the BNFL Sellafield Site and the Effect of this on the Safety of MOX Fuel in Use”, U.K. Health and Safety
Executive, 18 February 2000, see http://www.wise-paris.org/english/reports/000221HSEMOXFalsification.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.

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CASE STUDIES: SABOTAGE AND ORGANIZEDCRIME IN JAPAN, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.
Data on organized crime and sabotage at nuclear power plants is difficult to access. Most
detailed and sensitive information has been collected and gathered in official and scholarly
databases, such as the ITDB and the DTSO, both of which are not open source. For instance,elements such as the identity of perpetrators, the circumstances and frequency of incidents
are generally unknown/concealed to the public. This is exemplified in a consequential case ofsabotage which led to the 6-months-shutdown of a reactor at the Belgian Doel nuclear power
plant in 2014. While on-site investigations have been undertaken up until June 2020, theidentity of the insider perpetrator(s) has never been discovered.879
Accordingly, without any specific timeframe, this section selects and analyzes 10 insider threatcases which have been the most publicly documented (literature, START database). It focuses
specifically on events involving criminal practices which compromised security and/or safety
having occurred at nuclear power plants in Japan, Russia, and the U.S.

Sabotage
Insider sabotage has occurred on several occasions at U.S. nuclear power plants. Whileno similar events have been reported in Japan and Russia, there have been, like in the U.S.,
sabotage plans and alleged sabotage attempts by outsiders at Japanese and Russian nuclear
power plants.880 The following sabotage cases at U.S. nuclear power plants involved disgruntled
employees.
ɆɆ St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, U.S., August 1996—Employees glued backup switches ina high security area during a labor strike over their working conditions. The month before,
it had been discovered that padlocks and doors had also been glued.881
ɆɆ Surry Nuclear Power Station, U.S., 27 April 1979—Former employees William Kuykendall
and James Merrill poured sodium hydroxide caustic soda on fuel rods at the plant, causing
over US$800,000 worth of damage882 . During their trial, they claimed that their objective
was to draw attention to persistent safety issues at the plant.883
Although these cases occurred decades ago, they underline the centrality of insider threats
in nuclear security, as well as likely shortcomings with the “four-eyes principle” (requiring atleast a two-person presence) which has been implemented in many countries including the
U.S. since then.
879 - Maxime Vande Weber, “Des perquisitions ont lieu à la centrale nucléaire de Doel”, L’Echo, 24 June 2020 (in French),see https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/energie/des-perquisitions-ont-lieu-a-la-centrale-nucleaire-de-doel/10235169.html,
accessed 12 June 2021.
880 - START, “Nuclear Facilities Attack Database (NuFAD)”, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, see https://www.start.umd.edu/nuclear-facilities-attack-database-nufad; and NTI, “Less Well Known Cases of Nuclear
Terrorism and Nuclear Diversion in Russia”, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 20 August 1997, see https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/lesswell-known-cases-nuclear-terrorism-and-nuclear-diversion-russia/, both accessed 7 June 2021.
881 - Tampa Bay Times, “Glue found in switches at nuclear power plant”, 15 August 1996,
see https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1996/08/15/glue-found-in-switches-at-nuclear-power-plant/, accessed 7 June 2021.
882 - START, “Nuclear Facilities Attack Database (NuFAD)”, op. cit.
883 - Sarasota Herald Tribune, “Nuclear Workers Convicted of Sabotage”, 17 October 1979,see https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DJwcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=i2cEAAAAIBAJ&hl=fr&pg=4150%2C279441, accessed 7 June 2021.

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While there seem to be no reported cases of insider sabotage in Japan, there have been
several cases of insiders mistakenly and deliberately gaining access to sensitive areas at the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa and Ohi nuclear power plants in 2015, 2018 and 2020.884 Independent
experts have underlined Japan’s idiosyncratic nuclear security culture deficiencies, explainingthat “it always seemed as if in Japan there was a very basic missing ingredient. And that was theimagination of a threat”.885 In 2015, Japan’s National Regulation Authority (NRA) establisheda plan of action to improve upon security at Japanese nuclear power plants, including a “Codeof Conduct on Nuclear Security Culture”. The abovementioned incidents underline thesemeasures’ limited impact and the feasibility of an insider attack.886
Several reports have established a link between financial hardship, loss of social prestige of
nuclear professions following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and material theft. A
2014-Russian-NGO-study on Leningrad power plant employees’ working-conditions reported
low salaries, unhygienic accommodations, and the confiscation of foreign workers’ passports
by managers.887 In 2004, former Leningrad-plant employee Sergei Karitonov published a reportclaiming that individuals, most likely employees, had stolen switches from a safety system that
can trigger an automatic reactor shutdown. The theft of valves was also reported in the press.888

Organized Crime and Nuclear Trafficking
Criminal network infiltration in nuclear power plants is a well-documented problem in Japan.
Examples include:ɆɆ Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, Japan, October 2014—Yuuki Sagawa, a member ofthe Matsuba Kai mob was arrested in 2014 for brokering unlicensed workers to Fukushimacleanup operations.
ɆɆ May 2012—Makoto Owada, high-ranking member of Sumiyoshi-kai, the second largest
Yakuza group in the country, was arrested for the same crime.889
The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) database 2013–2017 analysis finds that
68 percent of the discovered nuclear and radioactive materials trafficking incidents worldwide
have occurred in countries of the Former Soviet Union.
884 - Osamu Tsukimori, “Tepco lapse a wake-up call for Japan’s nuclear security protocols, expert says”, The Japan Times,
15 April 2021, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/04/15/national/nra-niigata-tepco-nuclear-security/;
and The Japan Times, “Another security breach at Tepco nuclear plant uncovered”, 9 May 2021, see https://www.japantimes.co.jp/
news/2021/05/09/national/tepco-nuclear-power-plant-security-breach/, both accessed 7 June 2021.
885 - Osamu Tsukimori, “Tepco lapse a wake-up call for Japan’s nuclear security protocols, expert says”, The Japan Times, April 2021,
op. cit.
886 - Matthew Bunn, Nicholas Roth and William H. Tobey, “Revitalizing Nuclear Security in an Era of Uncertainty”, Project onManaging the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, January 2019, see https://scholar.
harvard.edu/files/matthew_bunn/files/bunn_revitalizing_nuclear_security_in_an_era_of_uncertainty_2019.pdf, accessed 7 June 2021.
887 - Kendra Ulrich, Jehki Harkonen and Brian Blomme, “Rosatom risks: Exposing the troubled history of Russia’s state nuclear
corporation”, Greenpeace, October 2014, op. cit.
888 - NEI, “Serious concerns over Leningrad”, 20 October 2004, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsserious-concerns-overleningrad/, accessed 26 June 2021.
889 - NHK, “Gen patsu sagyoin haken de Matsubakaikei boryokudanin taiho” [Arrest of Mob Member Affiliated with Matsuba kai for
Sending Workers to Nuclear Power Work], as published on 弁財天/Benzaiten.org, 6 October 2014 (in Japanese), see http://benzaiten.
dyndns.org/roller/ugya/entry/matsubakai-2014; and Jake Adelstein, “How the Yakuza and Japan’s Nuclear Industry Learned to Love
Each Other”, The Atlantic, 24 May 2012, see https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/how-yakuza-and-japansnuclear-industry-learned-love-each-other/327691/, accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 This is of course no proof that similar incidents have not occurred in other regions involving
a range of other nuclear facilities, but from available data it appears that nuclear power plants
are not primarily involved in nuclear and radioactive materials trafficking.
On the other hand, the mentioned Japanese mafia cases present evidence of a systemic issue
which aligns with Japanese nuclear operators’ apparently deficient security culture. In his
statement to the police, Owada admitted he had sent Yakuza members to work on several
nuclear-plant construction-sites since 2007. Other sources suggest that the Yakuza supply
workers to nuclear plants since the 1990s.890 Furthermore, an executive from a Yakuza KudoKai front company was arrested in January 2012 for contributing to the making of illegal work
contracts with the Ohi nuclear power plant.891 Considering that the extortion and blackmailof nuclear power plant officials is a longstanding practice among Japanese mobs,892 and thatat least two suspected sabotage cases occurred at Fukushima since the beginning of the post3/11 clean-up, mafia-member infiltration as decontamination workers appears particularly
worrisome.893

CONCLUSIONIn February 2021, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists headlined a piece “Big money, nuclear
subsidies, and systemic corruption”.894 The multiplication of cases of fraud and corruption inrecent years—WNISR2020 mentions the term “corrupt” or “corruption” 14 times throughout
the report—keeps observers wondering whether the nuclear industry is indeed confronted
with a systemic phenomenon of criminal behavior.
The public views nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities as being under particularly
strict safety and security control. However, the nuclear sector is subject to some of the sameirregularities and criminal activities as other large infrastructure projects. Huge contract size
and multiple layers of subcontractors make the sector attractive for people with malicious
intentions. The presence of nuclear and other radioactive materials leads to particular safety
and security implications.
In Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index, half of the 35 countries
operating or constructing nuclear power plants on their territory rate under 50 out of 100. In
the Bribery Payers Index (last published in 2011), which rates 28 world leading economies basedon companies’ perceived likelihood to resort to bribery when conducting business abroad,seven out of the ten worst rated countries operate or are building nuclear power plants on theirterritory. The two countries at the bottom of the ranking are China and Russia, respectively
890 - Jake Adelstein, “How the Yakuza and Japan’s Nuclear Industry Learned to Love Each Other”, The Atlantic, 24 May 2012, op. cit.
891 - Jake Adelstein, “First Arrest Made Linking Yakuza with Fukushima Nuclear Clean-Up Crews.”, The Atlantic, 22 May 2012,see https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/first-arrest-made-linking-yakuza-fukushima-nuclear-cleancrews/327820/, accessed 7 June 2021.
892 - Mark J. Ramseyer, “Nuclear Power and the Mob: Extortion in Japan”, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol. 13, no. 3,
2016, pp. 487–515; and Jake Adelstein, “How the Yakuza and Japan’s Nuclear Industry Learned to Love Each Other”, The Atlantic,
24 May 2012, op. cit.
893 - Ethan Huff, “Intentional sabotage believed to have disrupted decontamination at Fukushima plant”, Natural News, 23 April 2014,see https://www.naturalnews.com/045109_Fukushima_sabotage_radiation_decontamination.html, accessed 7 June 2021.
894 - Cassandra Jeffery and M. V. Ramana, “Big money, nuclear subsidies, and systemic corruption”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
op. cit.

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the second and fourth largest nuclear power generating countries, with Russia, the worst-rated,also representing the largest current nuclear power plant exporter.
According to the IAEA, “The infiltration into the global supply chain of CFIs [Counterfeit or
Fraudulent Items] is a growing concern worldwide.”895 Nonetheless, the phenomenon is difficult
or impossible to quantify. For example, over the period 2012 to early 2016, WANO was madeaware of ten fraudulent and counterfeited-parts incidents, eight of which had been reported to
the Atlanta Centre, the liaison office for just seven nuclear countries.
Comprehensive data on issues such as theft, trafficking and sabotage is difficult to accessand generally publicly unavailable. Thus, evaluating the scale of these criminal activities isparticularly challenging. The publicly accessible START worldwide database, for example,
contains 80 cases of attacks on nuclear facilities between 1961 and 2014. Yet, Anthony Honnellio
and Stan Rydell of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, claimed that, up until 2005,
there had already been 120 confirmed sabotage attempts in American nuclear power plants
alone.896
The ITDB database, which is not available for the public, has recorded 3,696 confirmed
incidents between 1995 and 31 December 2019, 290 out of which were “confirmed or likely
act[s] of trafficking or malicious use”. In most known cases, research and development sites orother sectors manipulating radioactive materials have been the source of smuggled substances.
Nuclear power plants or fuel chain facilities have not been primarily involved in nuclear andradioactive materials trafficking.
In the past decade, there has been growing evidence of criminality in the nuclear industry.
Similar to other sectors of large infrastructure investments, this has included cases of bribery
and corruption, counterfeit and fraud in manufacturing and quality control. Most public
discussion about these matters has focused on governance and image; but the potential safety
and security implications have been little explored. In addition, there is also the threat ofinsider sabotage and terrorist attacks, but information remains scarce in the public domain.

895 - IAEA, “Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry”, March 2019, No. NP-T-3.26, op. cit.
896 - Anthony L. Honnellion and Stan Rydell, “Sabotage vulnerability of nuclear power plants”, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Vol. 1, No 3, 2007, pp. 312–321.

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DECOMMISSIONINGSTATUS REPORT 2021
INTRODUCTION
Decommissioning nuclear power plants is an important element of the nuclear power system.
The defueling, deconstruction, and dismantling—summarized by the term decommissioning—are the final steps in the life cycle of a nuclear power plant (excluding waste management anddisposal). The process is technically complex and poses major challenges in terms of long-termplanning, execution, and financing. Decommissioning was rarely considered in the reactor
design, and the costs for decommissioning at the end of the lifetime of a reactor were usually
discounted away, and thus, subsequently, largely ignored. However, as an increasing numberof nuclear facilities either reach the end of their operational lifetimes or are already closed,
the challenges of reactor decommissioning are coming to the fore, and also attract increasing
public and policy attention.

Elements of National Decommissioning Policies
Decommissioning plays an increasing role in nuclear politics, both in timing and production
process, and the financing thereof. When analyzing decommissioning policies, one needs todistinguish between the process itself (in the sense of the actual implementation), and thefinancing of decommissioning. The technological process can be divided into three mainstages, which are briefly described hereunder (for more details, see WNISR2018).
ɆɆ The warm-up stage comprises the post-operational stage, the dismantling of systems
that are not needed for the decommissioning process. Also, the dismantling of higher
contaminated system parts begins. An indicator for the progress of this stage is thedefueling of the reactor as it is crucial for further undertakings: defueling means removing
the spent fuel from the reactor core and the spent fuel pools.
ɆɆ The hot-zone stage comprises the dismantling activities in the hot zone, i.e. dismantlingof highly contaminated or activated parts, e.g. the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and its
internals (RVI), the biological shield.
ɆɆ The ease-off stage comprises removal of operating systems as well as decontamination of
the buildings. This stage ends ideally with the demolition of the buildings and the releaseof the reactor site as a greenfield for unrestricted use but the release as a brownfield isallowed in some countries, which means that the buildings can also be further used, fornuclear or other purposes.
With respect to financing, four main approaches are observable: Public budget, external
segregated fund, internal non-segregated fund, and internal segregated fund (for more details,
see WNISR2018).

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GLOBAL OVERVIEW
Decommissioning Worldwide
As of 1 July 2021, worldwide, there are 196 closed reactors totaling 90.4 GW of capacity. Since
WNISR2020, seven additional reactors (5.5 GW) have officially been closed: two each in the
U.S. and the U.K., and one each in Russia, Sweden, and Taiwan. Of the closed units, nearly
60 percent are located in Europe (93 in Western Europe and 24 in Central and Eastern Europe),
followed by nearly a quarter of closed units in North America (46) and one sixth in Asia (33).
Almost four in five or 154 reactors used three technologies: Pressurized Water Reactors or
PWRs (31 percent or 61 units), Boiling Water Reactors or BWRs (27 percent or 53 units), andGas-Cooled Reactors or GCRs (20 percent or 40 units). Of the latter, the majority (29 units) arein the U.K. Table 12 provides an overview of the closed reactors worldwide.
Table 12 – Overview of Reactor Decommissioning Worldwide (as of July 2021)
CountryUSA

ClosedReactors

Warm-upHot-zone

Ease-off

LTE

Completed

Share ofCompleted

40

9

0

4

13

14

35%

UK

32

0

0

0

32

0

0%

Germany

30

8

8

8

1

5

17%

Japan

27

26

0

0

0

1

4%

France

14

4

2

0

8

0

0%

Russia

9

0

0

0

9

0

0%

Sweden

7

3

4

0

0

0

0%

Canada

6

1

0

0

5

0

0%

Bulgaria

4

4

0

0

0

0

0%

Italy

4

4

0

0

0

0

0%

Ukraine

4

0

0

0

3

0

0%

Slovakia

3

2

1

0

0

0

0%

Spain

3

1

0

1

1

0

0%

Taiwan

3

3

0

0

0

0

0%

Lithuania

2

2

0

0

0

0

0%

South Korea

2

2

0

0

0

0

0%

Switzerland

1

1

0

0

0

0

0%

Armenia

1

1

0

0

0

0

0%

Belgium

1

0

0

1

0

0

0%

India

1

1

0

0

0

0

0%

Kazakhstan

1

0

0

0

1

0

0%

Netherlands

1

0

0

0

1

0

0%

196

72

15

14

74

20

10%

Total

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Looking ahead, the implementation numbers will increase significantly: Assuming a 40-year
average lifetime, a further 180 reactors will close by 2030 (reactors connected to the grid
between 1981 and 1990); and an additional 132 will be closed by 2060; this does not even

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account for the 99 reactors which started operating before 1981, an additional 26 reactors inLong-term Outage (LTO) and the 53 reactors under construction as of mid-2021.

Overview of Reactors with Completed Decommissioning
Since WNISR2020, no reactor finished the technical decommissioning process. The
latest completed reactor was the La Crosse station in the USA, where, in November 2019,
EnergySolutions announced the completion of the “physical work”.897 Final site survey andlicense reduction to the independent spent fuel installation were planned for 2020.898 But,
as of March 2021, the site had still not been released from regulatory control.899 The 48-MW
La Crosse plant was decommissioned 37 years after its closure.
Of the 20 decommissioned reactors, only 10 have been returned to greenfield sites. The average
duration of the decommissioning process, independent of the chosen strategy, is around20 years, with a very high variance: the minimum of six years for the 22-MW Elk River plant,
and the maximum of 42 years for the 17-MW CVTR (Carolinas-Virginia Tube Reactor), both in
the U.S., both very small.
Figure 40 · Overview of Completed Reactor Decommissioning Projects, 1954–2020

Overview of Completed Reactor Decommissioning Projects, 1954–2020
in the U.S., Germany and Japan, as of 1 July 2021
United States
Shippingport
Yankee NPS
Elk River
Pathfinder
SaxtonCVTR
Big Rock Point
Lacrosse
Haddam Neck
Fort St. Vrain
Maine Yankee
Rancho Seco-1
TrojanShorehamGermany

VAK Kahl
Gundremmingen-A (KRB A)
HDR Grosswelzheim
Niederaichbach (KKN)
Wuergassen (KWW)

Japan

JPDR
1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

1954

2020
2020

Construction

Operation

Decommissioning© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

897 - NEI, “Physical work completed for decommissioning of US La Crosse NPP”, 14 November 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newsphysical-work-completed-for-decommissioning-of-us-la-crosse-npp-7508092, accessed 7 July 2020.
898 - NRC, “La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor”, 19 November 2019, see https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/powerreactor/lacrosse-boiling-water-reactor.html, accessed 7 July 2020.
899 - NRC, “La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor”, Updated 25 March 2021, see https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/powerreactor/lacrosse-boiling-water-reactor.html, accessed 21 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

The only countries to have completed the technical decommissioning process are theUnited States (14), Germany (5), and Japan (1). Some of the U.S. reactors are amongst themost rapidly decommissioned. In Germany, the HDR (Heißdampfreaktor, a superheatedsteam reactor) Großwelzheim was on the grid for one year only, but decommissioning lasted
well over 20 years. Gundremmingen-A and Würgassen have de facto completed the technicaldecommissioning process but, legally, cannot be released from regulatory control as thebuildings are used for interim storage of wastes or conditioning work for operational units(in the case of Gundremmingen).900 In Japan, the only reactor decommissioned was a small
research reactor, whereas none of the commercial reactors has yet been decommissioned.901
Figure 40 provides the timelines of the 20 reactors that have completed the decommissioning
process.

Overview of Reactors with Ongoing
Decommissioning in 11 Selected Countries
As of the first quarter of 2021, 176 units are globally awaiting or in various stages ofdecommissioning, seven more than in the first half of 2020. WNISR2021 provides an updateof in-depth reviews of developments in eleven major countries published in WNISR2018
and WNISR2019. The country case-studies suggest that both duration and costs have beensystematically largely underestimated. In nearly all cases, the ongoing decommissioning
projects encounter delays as well as cost increases.
This section provides a review of developments since WNISR2020, while the following
section contains more details on the case studies. There are 169 closed reactors in theselected 11 countries902; this represents around 86 percent of all closed reactors, 149 of which
are in various stages of decommissioning with 20 fully decommissioned. Currently 57 arein the warm-up stage, only 10 reactors are in the “hot-zone -stage”, and 13 are in the easeoff stage. None of the early nuclear states—U.K., France, Russia, and Canada—have fully
decommissioned a single reactor yet. Russia has put all its closed reactors into Long-Term
Enclosure (LTE), postponing decommissioning into the future. WNISR2021 counts a total of
69 reactors in LTE in these 11 countries, 40 percent of all closed units. The U.K. opted for thesame decommissioning strategy but changed its strategy in 2021, after the NDA concluded thata site-specific strategy for each site is better suited for reflecting the nature and context ofthe facility or site in question. Decommissioning of a Magnox reactor will now begin at the
Trawsfynydd site in Wales.

900 - Ines Bredberg, Johann Hutter et al., “Statusbericht zur Kernenergienutzung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2019”, Division
for Nuclear Safety and Supervision in Nuclear Disposal, German Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management,
21 September 2020 (in German), see https://doris.bfs.de/jspui/handle/urn:nbn:de:0221-2020092123025, accessed 19 August 2021.
901 - Marc Schmittem, “Nuclear Decommissioning in Japan – Opportunities for European Companies”, EU-Japan Centre for Industrial
Cooperation, March 2016, see https://www.eu-japan.eu/sites/default/files/publications/docs/2016-03-nuclear-decommissioning-japanschmittem-min_0.pdf, accessed 23 April 2018.
902 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, U.K. and U.S.

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Figure 41 · Progress and Status of Reactor Decommissioning, 2018–2021

Progress and Status of Reactor Decommissioning in Selected Countries
in Units, June 2018 – June 2021
2021
2018

USA

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Germany
Japan
FranceStatusWarm-upHot-zone
Ease-off
Completed

Italy
Spain
Lithuania
South Korea
25

Ongoing20

15

10Completed

5

5

10

Decommissioning
Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Figure 41 reflects the little progress that the global decommissioning industry is making.
Between July 2020 and June 2021, little progress can be reported for most of the reactors
undergoing decommissioning. In Canada, Douglas Point entered the warm-up stage after
being in enclosure for more than 30 years. This represents the first decommissioning start in
Canada as well as the first decommissioning start of a CANDU reactor worldwide. In the U.S.,
Indian Point-3 entered into the warm-up stage. The U.S. has also a large number of reactors
in LTE too, with Duane Arnold-1, this number increased to 13 reactors in LTE in 2021 (see thefollowing Case Studies for details).

Brief Overview of Reactors with Ongoing Decommissioning
This section contains a brief overview of the decommissioning process of 26 reactors inanother eleven countries which are not analyzed in-depth in the following case studies.
With the closure of Ringhals-1 in December 2020, Sweden has now seven reactors undergoing
decommissioning. Ringhals-1 and Ringhals-2 are in the warm-up stage. Decommissioningof the first Swedish nuclear reactor Ågesta, which was closed in 1974, only started in 2020
and is thus also in the warm-up stage. Dismantling of the reactor will be carried out by
Westinghouse.903 The two Barsebäck units as well as the two Oskarshamn units are in the hotzone stage. Dismantling of the reactor vessel internals was completed for the four units in
2019904 by Westinghouse at the Barsebäck units905 and by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy at the903 - WNN, “Westinghouse to dismantle Ågesta reactor”, 21 December 2020,see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Westinghouse-to-dismantle-Agesta-reactor, accessed 1 July 2021.
904 - Kristina Gillin, “Sweden prepares for a decade of nuclear decommissioning”, NS Energy, 27 February 2020,see https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/nuclear-decommissioning-sweden/, accessed 1 July 2021.
905 - WNN, “Swedish dismantling work for Westinghouse”, 2 November 2015, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Swedishdismantling-work-for-Westinghouse-0211154.html, accessed 1 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Oskarshamn site906. The dismantling of the reactor pressure vessels of the four units wasawarded to an Uniper and Nukem Technologies consortium, which expects to complete theworks by 2024.907
In Bulgaria (Kozloduy 1–4) and Slovakia (Bohunice-1 and -2) six PWRs are being
decommissioned as well as one heavy water reactor (Bohunice A1). The decommissioningof the six PWRs, as it is the case with the Soviet reactors in Lithuania, are co-funded by
the European Union. Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia agreed to shut down the reactors at
Kozloduy, Ignalina (which is covered more in depth later, see Country Case Studies – Lithuania),
and Bohunice respectively, when they joined the European Union. The Kozloduy plants are in
the warm-up-stage and expected to be decommissioned by 2030.908 Decommissioning at the
Bohunice site is the most advanced decommissioning project going on in the three countries.
Here, Unit 1 entered, in 2020, the hot-zone-stage with the removal and transport of thereactor pressure vessel to the pool of the wet fragmentation workplace.909 Completion dateof decommissioning the two units is set to 2025910 and would constitute the first completed
decommissioning of a Soviet (or Russian) PWR. Decommissioning of the Bohunice A-1 reactor,
which was closed in 1977 due to an accident, officially started in 1999911 and seems to be slowly
progressing.912 The four closed reactors in the Ukraine are the four units of the Chernobyl
station. For Units 1–3 preparation works to put the three reactors in LTE started in 2015.913
In Belgium, the only reactor undergoing decommissioning is the reactor BR-3 (10 MW), which
was closed in 1987 and is in the ease-off stage and expected to complete decommissioning toa greenfield site by 2023.914 The decommissioning of the seven Doel and Tihange units, which
are planned to close by 2025, will cost at least €18 billion [US$21.4 billion] according to theoperator Engie Electrabel.915 In the Netherlands, the 55 MW Dodewaard reactor, which was
906 - WNN, “Dismantling of Oskarshamn reactor internals completed”, 19 December 2019,see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Dismantling-of-Oskarshamn-reactor-internals-comple, accessed 1 July 2021.
907 - Nukem Technologies, “Dismantling of 4 Reactor Pressure Vessels at Oskarshamn NPP and Barsebäck NPP”, Undated, see https://www.nukemtechnologies.de/en/projects/se/Dismantling of 4 Reactor Pressure Vessels at Oskarshamn NPP and Barsebäck NPP,
accessed 1 July 2021.
908 - European Commission, “Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementationof the work under the nuclear decommissioning assistance programme to Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania in 2020 and previous
years”, 18 May 2021, see https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/d5aefc6c-b7c4-11eb-8aca-01aa75ed71a1/language-en,
accessed 19 August 2021.
909 - NEI, “Pressure vessel removal at Bohunice”, 12 August 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurepressure-vesselremoval-at-bohunice-8079422/, accessed 1 July 2021.
910 - European Commission, “Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Implementation of theWork under the Nuclear Decommissioning Assistance Programme to Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania in 2020 and Previous Years”,
2021, op. cit.
911 - javys, “A1 NPP Decommissioning”, Undated, see https://www.javys.sk/en/activities-of-the-company/a1-npp-decommissioning,accessed 2 July 2021.
912 - Slovak Republic, “National Report of the Slovak Republic—Compiled in Terms of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent
Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radwaste Management”, National report of Slovakia for the 6th Review Meeting, IAEA,
August 2017, see https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/national_report_of_slovakia_for_the_6th_review_meeting_-_english.pdf,
accessed 19 August 2021.
913 - WNN, “Chernobyl 1-3 enter decommissioning phase”, 13 April 2015, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3enter-decommissioning-phase, accessed 1 July 2021.
914 - Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, “Belgian Reactor 3 - BR3”, SCK CEN, Undated,
see https://science.sckcen.be/en/Facilities/BR3, accessed 1 July 2021.
915 - Andreas Kockartz, “Der Rückbau der belgischen Kernkraftwerke kostet mindestens 18 Mia. €”, vrt NWS, 30 June 2021
(in German), see https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/de/2021/06/30/der-rueckbau-der-belgischen-kernkraftwerke-kostet-mindestens-18/,
accessed 1 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 closed in 1997, was put into LTE in 2007 for 40 years.916 In Switzerland, Mühleberg, which
was closed in 2019, constitutes the first reactor to enter decommissioning. The operator BKW
Energie expects decommissioning to last 15 years.917
In Taiwan, the two reactors at the Chinshan site got their decommissioning license in
2019918 and decommissioning to a greenfield site is expected to last 25 years.919 In Armenia,
a Nukem-led consortium consisting also of EWN was awarded a contract in 2014 to set up a
decommissioning plan for the closed reactor of the Metsamor site. There is however no clear
indication if the plan is finished or actual dismantling works have started. For Rajasthan-1 in
India—placed in LTO status since 2004 and (since 2014) considered by WNISR as closed asof this date—no official information is available as to whether actual dismantling work has
started. However, there has been a media report in March 2021 stating that “fuel has been
removed”.920
Decommissioning of the sodium-cooled fast reactor Aktau in Kazakhstan is progressing
very slowly due to its complexity. From 1999 until 2016 with the financial support of the
U.S. government, nuclear fuel was removed and, works on the sodium in the primary circuit
were carried out.921 The decommissioning strategy is to put the reactor into LTE for 50 years.
Financing decommissioning is also a challenge. Total costs were estimated to be around
KZT125 billion (US$330 million); of which only roughly one percent of the estimate has beencollected in Kazakhstani Wealth Fund Samruk- Kazyna. The remaining funding will be paid by
the local residents through the electricity tariff.922

COUNTRY CASE STUDIESThe following section describes a number of case studies by order of significance in recent
decommissioning activities.

916 - Wolfgang Irrek, Lutz Jarczynski and Lars Kirchner, “Comparison Among Different Decommissioning Fund Methodologies for
Nuclear Installations—Country Report The Netherlands”, Wuppertal Institute, On Behalf of the European Commission DirectorateGeneral Energy and Transport, 31 October 2006.
917 - WNN, “Mühleberg plant enters permanent decommissioning stage”, 18 September 2020,see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Muhleberg-plant-enters-permanent-decommissioning-s, accessed 1 July 2021.
918 - Atomic Energy Council, “Words from the Chairman”, 1 June 2020, see https://www.aec.gov.tw/english/About-AEC/Words-fromthe-Chairman-17.html, accessed 1 July 2021.
919 - Timothy Ferry, “Nuclear Decommissioning Stuck in Limbo”, AmCham Taiwan, Taiwan Business TOPICS, 6 February 2020,see https://topics.amcham.com.tw/2020/02/nuclear-decommissioning-in-limbo/, accessed 1 July 2021.
920 - Fiftytwo, “Fissile”, 5 March 2021, see https://fiftytwo.in/story/fissile/, accessed 22 August 2021.
921 - NEI, “Local residents pay for decommissioning of Kazakhstan’s BN-350 reactor”, 27 February 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newslocal-residents-pay-for-decommissioning-of-kazakhstans-bn-350-reactor-7796914, accessed 2 July 2021.
922 - Ibidem.

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Focus Country: Germany
With the closure of Philppsburg-2 in Bavaria on 31 Germany has (with the U.K.) the second
largest fleet of closed reactors (30) worldwide as well as the second highest number ofdecommissioned units (5) in the world. WNISR2021 therefore looks in detail into thedecommissioning sector in Germany.

Completed Decommissioning Projects
Germany closed its first reactor already in 1971: the prototype reactor HDR Großwelzheim
in Bavaria, a Boiling Water Reactor operated with superheated steam. The reactor was alreadyclosed after around 1.5 years. The reason for the closure was the discovery of defective fuelelements which would not have allowed continued operation at full load. Although thedecommissioning license was granted in 1983, the reactor was used for experiments on reactor
safety from 1974 until 1992.923 In 1993, the decommissioning licensee KIT (Karlsruher Institut
für Technologie) began with the dismantling of the unit and decommissioning was completed
in 1998 with the restoration of the site to the greenfield state. There is no indication on thedecommissioning cost.
The second reactor that finished decommissioning was Niederaichbach, a heavy watermoderated pressure-tube reactor in Bavaria, which entered power operation in 1973, but wasclosed only a year later. The power plant only operated 18 days with full load.924 Although,the floor slabs of the reactor building remained in the ground, the reactor is considered asa “greenfield site”.925 Decommissioning costs amounted to around DM269 million (around€2021184 million or US$2021166 million) and was thus more expensive than construction(DM232 million).926 Far more than 90 percent of the decommissioning costs were borne by thefederal government, with the rest covered by Siemens AG.927
The first and only light water reactor which was released from regulatory control is the
prototype boiling water reactor VAK Kahl. The reactor was closed in 1985 after 24 years ofoperation. This also constitutes the first decommissioning project by German utilities, as
the reactor was majority-owned by RWE (75 percent). Dismantling began immediately after
its closure and the site was released as a greenfield site in 2010. Total costs were given as

923 - Stefan Thierfeldt and Frank Schartmann, “Stilllegung und Rückbau kerntechnischer Anlagen—Erfahrungen und Perspektiven”,
3rd Edition, Brenk Systemplanung, Report Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, November 2009
(in German), see https://www.ptka.kit.edu/ptka-alt/downloads/ptka-wte-e/WTE-E-Entsorgungsforschung-Broschuere_Stilllegungund-Rueckbau_BRENK.pdf, accessed 22 August 2021.
924 - Ines Bredberg, Johann Hutter et al., “Statusbericht zur Kernenergienutzung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2019”, German
Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, 21 September 2020, op. cit.
925 - Ibidem.
926 - Luis Valencia and Erwin Prechtl, “Die Demontage und Beseitigung des Kernkraftwerkes Niederaichbach (KKN) bis zur ‘Grünen
Wiese’—Abschlußbericht”, Scientific Report FZKA 6070, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, April 1998 (in German),see https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/270043126/3813667, accessed 22 August 2021.
927 - Federal Government of Germany, “Antwort der Bundesregierung—Erfahrungen aus dem Abriß des KKW Niederaichbach (KKN)
für die Entsorgung stillgelegter Kernkraftwerke”, Drucksache 13/721, German Bundestag, 9 March 1995 (in German),see https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/13/007/1300721.pdf, accessed 22 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 243€150 million in 2010 (~US$201014,366/kW). Decommissioning took longer and was more costly
than construction, according to RWE.928
Two commercial reactors finished the technical decommissioning process. Gundremmingen-A
closed in 1977 after 10 years of operation after an emergency cooling system malfunctioned
and flooded the containment building.929 Decommissioning was started in 1983 and concluded
in 2016.930 The latest cost estimate for decommissioning of Gundremmingen-A was around€2.2 billion (US$2.4 billion) or €9,000/kW (US$9,690/kW).
Würgassen was shut down in 1994, after 23 years of operation, when cracks on the reactor’s core
jacket were found during a scheduled inspection.931 Decommissioning started in 1997 and wasconcluded in 2014. The latest cost estimate for Würgassen was around €1 billion (US$1.1 billion)or €1,500/kW (US$1,615/kW). Both sites, Würgassen and Gundremmingen, cannot be released
from regulatory control as the buildings are used for further decommissioning works orinterim storage of wastes.932 Also for these two reactors both decommissioning costs andduration exceed construction costs and duration.
Table 13 – Decommissioned Reactors in Germany (as of May 2021)
Capacity inMW

Reactortype

Decommissioning
licensee

Closure inOperating time

Released from
regulatory
control

HDR Großwelzheim

25

BWR(a)

KIT

1971

1.5 year

1998

Niederaichbach

100

HWGCR

KIT

1974

1.5 year(18.3 days full load)

1998

Gundremmingen-A

237

BWR

75% RWE, 25% E.ON

1977

10 years

not yetVAK Kahl

15

BWR

80% RWE, 20%
Bayernwerk AG

1985

24 years

2010

Würgassen

640

PWR

E.ON

1994

23 years

not yet

Total

1 017

Reactor

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Note: (a) - Superheated steam reactor.

Table 13 provides an overview of the completed decommissioning projects in Germany.
Although five reactors have been decommissioned, this represents only around 1 GW ofcapacity. In the cases of Gundremmingen A, HDR Großwelzheim, and Niederaichbach,decommissioning lasted three to four times as long as construction and operation combined.
Where decommissioning costs are available, they exceed construction costs. Final costs are
only available for the two prototype reactors. For the two commercial reactors only the latest
928 - Katja Riedel, “Anfang und Ende des ersten deutschen Meilers”, Focus Online, 14 March 2016 (in German),see https://www.focus.de/wissen/klima/tid-22667/versuchsatomkraftwerk-kahl-anfang-und-ende-des-ersten-deutschen-meilers_
aid_637434.html, accessed 3 July 2020.
929 - Thomas Overton, “Malware at German Nuke Plant Leads to Shutdown”, POWER Mag, 27 April 2016,see https://www.powermag.com/malware-at-german-nuke-plant-leads-to-shutdown/, accessed 20 August 2021.
930 - Ines Bredberg, Johann Hutter et al., “Statusbericht zur Kernenergienutzung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2016”, German
Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, August 2017 (in German), see https://doris.bfs.de/jspui/bitstream/
urn:nbn:de:0221-2017070714281/3/Statusbericht_2016_BfE-KE-01-17.pdf.
931 - Ines Bredberg, Johann Hutter et al., “Statusbericht zur Kernenergienutzung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2019”, German
Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, 21 September 2020, op. cit.
932 - Jan Paul Seidel and Ben Wealer, “Rückbau von Kernkraftwerken in Deutschland. Analyse von Organisationsmodellen, Status Quo
des Rückbaus, Marktbeobachtung und internationale Erfahrungen”, TU Berlin, 2015.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 estimates are known. In addition, they have not yet been released from regulatory control
and are not yet in a “greenfield” state, so costs are not final. Although these two reactors are
considered commercial, their net power capacity is relatively low. Concerning decommissioning
experience of the incumbent German utilities, only a majority-owned RWE reactor has been
fully decommissioned. Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW), PreussenElektra (E.ON), andVattenfall have not yet released a reactor from regulatory control.

Decommissioning Monitoring
Currently, decommissioning work is ongoing at 24 units.
ɆɆ Eight reactors are in the warm-up stage: Biblis-A and -B (both defueled),
Grafenrheinfeld (defueled), Gundremmingen-B, Isar-1 (defueled), Krümmel (defueled),
Lingen (defueled), and Philippsburg-2;
ɆɆ Eight reactors are in the hot-zone-stage: AVR Jülich, Brunsbüttel, KNK II, MülheimKärlich, Neckarwestheim-1, Obrigheim, Philippsburg-1, and Unterweser;
ɆɆ Eight reactors are in the ease-off-zone stage: Greifswald Units 1–5, MZFR, Rheinsberg, andStade.
The thorium prototype reactor THTR-300 is the only reactor in LTE in the country.
With the defueling of Isar-1 in November 2020,933 all eight reactors closed in the aftermathof the Fukushima events in March 2011 are now defueled. Grafenrheinfeld was defueled
too in December 2020.934 The still operational Gundremmingen-C reactor in Bavaria got its
decommissioning license granted. The reactor will be shut down on 31 December 2021 (at thelatest). In April and July 2020, respectively, the Hessian Ministry of the Environment issued
the second dismantling permit for Unit A and B of the Biblis NPP.935 This permit includes
the dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel and the biological shield, which was initiallyscheduled to be carried out in 2020–2024. As there is currently no information that the works
in the hot-zone have started, WNISR counts both reactors as in the “warm-up” stage. RWEplans to complete the decommissioning process by 2032. In July 2020, the first underwater
dismantling work on the internals of the reactor pressure vessel at the Brunsbüttel nuclear
power plant has been successfully completed.936
Decommissioning of Stade (640 MW) was thought to be achieved by 2014, but
ongoing difficulties due to unexpected contamination keeps delaying the project.
PreussenElektra now expects to conclude decommissioning by 2026, while initial cost

933 - Harald Mitterer, “Rückbau: Das Atomkraftwerk Isar 1 ist frei von Brennelementen”, BR24 , 12 November 2020 (in German),see https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/rueckbau-das-atomkraftwerk-isar-1-ist-frei-von-brennelementen,SG8tT8r,
accessed 28 June 2021.
934 - Andreas Wilkens, “Atomkraft: AKW Grafenrheinfeld hat keine Brennelemente mehr”, Heise, 16 December 2020 (in German),see https://www.heise.de/news/Atomkraft-AKW-Grafenrheinfeld-hat-keine-Brennelemente-mehr-4991465.html, accessed 28 June 2021.
935 - Hessian Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, “Umweltministerium erteilt
zweite Abbaugenehmigung für Block B”, Press Release, 15 July 2020 (in German), see https://www.hessen.de/presse/pressemitteilung/umweltministerium-erteilt-zweite-abbaugenehmigung-fuer-block-b-0, accessed 28 June 2020.
936 - Vattenfall, “Rückbau Kernkraftwerk Brunsbüttel – Dampftrockner erfolgreich zerlegt”, 23 July 2020 (in German),see https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/blog/2020/rueckbau-kernkraftwerk-brunsbuettel, accessed 28 June 2021.

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estimates of around €500 million (US$2021594 million) are now expected to double to over
€1 billion (US$20211.2 billion).937
Table 14 shows the development in the decommissioning process since 2015 (see WNISR2018
for more details on decommissioning in Germany).
Table 14 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in Germany (as of May 2021)
Closed Reactor Status in Germany“Warm-up-stage”

2015

May 2018

May 2019

May 2020

May 2021

10

11

11

8

8

of which defueled

0

3

6

4

6

“Hot-zone-stage”

3

4

4

8

8
8

“Ease-off-stage”

9

8

8

8

LTE

2

1

1

1

1

Completedof which released from regulatory control

4

5

5

5

5

Total Closed Reactors

28

3

3
29

3
29

3
30

3
30

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Concentrated decommissioning market in the hot-zone
Germany is currently exploring large-scale decommissioning, and, with the exception of theformer GDR reactors, it is currently carried out (and financed) by the utilities themselves.
The legacy fleet of the former GDR is being decommissioned by Entsorgungswerk für
Nuklearanlagen (EWN), a public company under control of the German Federal Ministry of
Finances. EWN was initially set up solely for the decommissioning of the GDR legacy fleet
but has been since then involved in the majority of the German decommissioning projects.938
Experiences from past and ongoing decommissioning projects show that specialized companies
are needed for the works in the “hot-zone stage”, where the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) andthe reactor vessel internals (RVI) are dismantled. There were concerns that, as the industry for
nuclear decommissioning and waste management services required in this stage involved only
a few globally operating firms, this would constitute a bottleneck.939
RWE tendered most of its hot-zone works to a consortium consisting of Orano GmbH, a
German subsidiary of French Orano, and German EWN. The consortium is responsible forthe dismantling of the reactor vessel internals at three RWE reactors (Biblis-A/B, MülheimKärlich) and the dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel at Mülheim-Kärlich,940 while thesegmentation of the vessel was tendered to the U.S. company Atkins. In 2017, Vattenfall
tendered the dismantling of the reactor vessel internals of the Brunsbüttel and Krümmel
plants to the Orano/EWN consortium.

937 - Jörg Dammann, “Rückbau des AKW Stade dauert zwei Jahre länger”, Kreiszeitung Wochenblatt, 6 December 2020 (in German),see https://www.kreiszeitung-wochenblatt.de/stade/c-wirtschaft/rueckbau-des-akw-stade-dauert-zwei-jahre-laenger_a186108,
accessed 28 June 2021.
938 - Tim Scherwath, Ben Wealer and Roman Mendelevitch, “Nuclear decommissioning after the German Nuclear Phase-Out an
integrated view on new regulations and nuclear logistics”, Energy Policy, 2020.
939 - Ibidem.
940 - Orano will take over the dismantling of the internals, while EWN is responsible for the dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel
as well as the conditioning of the wastes.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

EnBW awarded a contract for the dismantling of the RPV and RVI of its first reactor to enterdecommissioning Obrigheim to EWN. Dismantling of the RPV and RVI of Philippsburg-1
is carried out by a Westinghouse-led consortium with Nukem Technologies and GNS.
Dismantling of the RVI at the Philippsburg-2 and Neckarwestheim-2 stations will also be
carried out by the Orano/EWN consortia.941
In January 2018, PreussenElektra awarded the dismantling of the RVI of six of its reactors
to ZerKon—a consortium consisting of three companies: the German utilities-owned
waste management company GNS, Westinghouse Electric Sweden, and Westinghouse
Electric Germany. In early 2020, dismantling of the reactor internals was started at theUnterweser station. In December 2019, PreussenElektra had subcontracted the reactor vessel
segmentation to the GNS group.942 In May 2021, Preussen Elektra again awarded a single
large decommissioning contract. This time the dismantling of 16 steam generators at theUnterweser, Grafenrheinfeld, Grohnde and Brokdorf stations was awarded to EDF-subsidiary
Cyclife and its subcontractor Framatome, another EDF subsidiary. The dismantling of the firststeam generator at Unterweser is scheduled for the second quarter of 2023.943
Although a bottleneck cannot yet be observed with the majority of the reactors just entering the
hot-zone stage (in the coming years), there is a high concentration of companies undertaking
the work in the hot-zone. Two companies stand out: the German federally-owned company
EWN and French Orano. Both companies created a consortium and won the tenders for thedismantling of the vessel internals of the German reactor fleet, except for PreussenElektra.
The latter contracted a Westinghouse consortium for these works.

United States
The U.S. has not only the largest fleet of operating (93) and closed reactors (40), but also thehighest number of decommissioned units (14) in the world, representing about two thirds ofthe total.
In the U.S., so far, 40 reactors (19.2 GW) have been closed. By 2050, at least 100 reactors
are likely to be undergoing decommissioning in the country. Of the 40 reactors (20 PWR,
14 BWR, 2 HTGR, 1 FBR, 1 PHWR, 2 others),944 14 units or 5 GW have been decommissioned(see Table 15). Currently, 13 units are in LTE and decommissioning work is ongoing at 13 units:ɆɆ nine reactors are in the warm-up stage: Crystal River-3, Fort Calhoun-1, Indian Point-2,
and -3, Oyster Creek, Pilgrim-1, San Onofre-2 and -3, and Vermont Yankee and;ɆɆ four reactors are in the ease-off stage: Humboldt Bay, San Onofre-1, Zion-1 and -2.
941 - Orano, “Dismantling: Orano’s global strengths”, Undated, see https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/dismantlingorano-s-global-strengths, accessed 5 July 2021.
942 - PreussenElektra, “Kernkraftwerk Unterweser: Zerlegearbeiten im Reaktordruckbehälter haben begonnen”, Press Release,
6 February 2020 (in German), see https://www.preussenelektra.de/de/unser-unternehmen/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/2020/
KKUZerlegearbeitenimRDBhabenbegonnen.html, accessed 11 May 2020.
943 - Artjom Maksimenko, “Preussen Elektra erteilt Rückbauaufträge für Kernkraftwerke”, energate messenger, 12 May 2021
(in German), see https://www.energate-messenger.de/news/212122/preussen-elektra-erteilt-rueckbauauftraege-fuer-kernkraftwerke,
accessed 5 July 2021.
944 - PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor; BWR: Boiling Water Reactor; HTGR: High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor; FBR: Fast
Breeder Reactor; PHWR: Pressurized Heavy-Water Reactor.

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Since WNISR2020, two more reactors were closed. Indian Point-3, the last reactor of the
Indian Point Station, just 30 km from New York City, was closed in April 2021 after 45 yearsof operation. Duane Arnold-1, the only nuclear reactor in Iowa, was initially planned to closein October 2020, but the reactor already ceased operation in August, after it scrammed, whena land-based hurricane severely damaged its cooling towers.945 The operator NexTera Energy
Resources plans to transfer the spent fuel into dry storage within the next three years and opts
for the LTE strategy (also labeled SAFSTOR).946 The current site-specific cost estimate for the
license termination expenses is of US$747 million (~US$1,240/kW), US$150 million of which
are still missing (as of 2020).947 Including interim spent fuel storage, and non-radiological site
restoration activities, the total site-specific cost estimate amounts to US$20201.05 billion.948
Since WNISR2018, the number of reactors in the warm-up stage has more than doubled tonine reactors in 2021, although no reactor is presently in the hot-zone. Except for the recently
closed Indian Point units and the Pilgrim station, six reactors in the warm-up stage are now
defueled. In August 2020 the last spent fuel from San Onofre-2 and -3 was transferred into dry
storage canisters.949 San Onofre was initially scheduled to be defueled by 2019. In May 2021,
Oyster Creek was defueled by Holtec International which took ownership of the plant in
mid-2019, in what it claimed was a “world record time” of 32 months.950 Table 15 shows thedecommissioning process in the U.S.
Table 15 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in the U.S. (as of May 2021)
Closed Reactor Status in the United States“Warm-up-stage”

May 2018

May 2019

4

6

of which defueled

1“Hot-zone-stage”

0“Ease-off-stage”

5

Long Term Enclosure (LTE)12Completedof which released from regulatory control

13

Total Closed Reactors

34

May 2021

8

9

1
0

12

12

13(a)

14
6

36

4
(a)

13

6
0

4
(a)

6

3
0

5
(a)

May 2020

14
6

38

6
40

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes: (a) – of which three reactors are in “Entombment”: DOE-reactors Piqua (Ohio), Bonus (Puerto Rico), Hallam (Nebraska).

945 - WNISR, “Storm Damage Prompts Early Closure of Duane Arnold Nuclear Reactor in the U.S.”, 26 August 2020, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Storm-Damage-Prompts-Early-Closure-of-Duane-Arnold-Nuclear-Reactor-in-the-U-S.html,
accessed 25 May 2021.
946 - NextEra Energy, “Duane Arnold Energy Center—Decommissioning Process”, Undated, see https://www.nexteraenergyresources.
com/what-we-do/nuclear/duane-arnold/decommissioning.html; and U.S.NRC, “Duane Arnold Energy Center”, Updated 24 March 2021,
see https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactors/duan.html, both accessed 23 August 2021.
947 - Sierra Club Iowa Chapter, “Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning”, as of 2020, see https://www.sierraclub.org/
iowa/duane-arnold-nuclear-power-plant-decommissioning, accessed 6 July 2021.
948 - NextEra Energy “Duane Arnold Energy Center, 2021 Annual Decommissioning and Spent Fuel Management Funding Status
Report”, Filed with the U.S.NRC, 31 March 2021, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2109/ML21090A232.pdf, accessed 23 August 2021.
949 - Rod Walton, “Nuclear fuel canisters all stored at decommissioned San Onofre nuclear station in California”, Power Engineering,
8 October 2020, see https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/waste-management-decommissioning/nuclear-fuel-canister-all-stored-atdecommission-san-onofre-nuclear-station-in-california/ - gref, accessed 6 July 2021.
950 - WNN, “Oyster Creek defuelled in record time”, 24 May 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Oyster-Creekdefuelled-in-record-time, accessed 6 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Decommissioning in the U.S. is characterized by two major trends identified in WNISR2018:
removal as a whole of large components, like the reactor pressure vessel, and disposingof it without prior dismantling (see WNISR2018 for more details) and selling the license
to a decommissioning contractor (see WNISR2019 for more details on this process). The
former is also one reason for the short decommissioning periods in the U.S. The San Onofre
decommissioning project also opts for this strategy. In summer 2020, EnergySolutions,
together with AECOM the general decommissioning contractor, transported the reactor
pressure vessel of San Onofre-1 to its disposal facility in Utah.951
The new organizational model of selling the license to a decommissioning contractor consistsof transferring the decommissioning license from the operator to a decommissioning
contractor, mostly a waste management company with the goal to reap efficiency gains
through the co-management of the decommissioning process by a company owning disposal
facilities or providing casks or spent fuel storage installations. Of the 13 reactors currently inthe warm-up and ease-off stage, as well as recently completed La Crosse, only Humboldt Bay
and Duane Arnold were not transferred to a decommissioning licensee or contracted to oneof the following three companies: Energy Solutions, Accelerated Decommissioning Partners(NorthStar/Orano joint venture), and Holtec International (with SNC-Lavalin) and Holtec
subsidiaries (see WNISR2020 for a detailed analysis).
Holtec and Entergy agreed on the transfer of the three Indian Point reactors (Unit 1 is inLTE) to Holtec International, as owner, and Holtec Decommissioning International, as
decommissioning operator. Holtec has proposed decommissioning and demolishing thethree units by year-end 2033, at a projected cost of US$2.3 billion.952 The Decommissioning
Trust Fund for the Indian Point Station contains US$2.4 billion.953 Following the licensetransfer application some of New York’s congressional lawmakers called on the NRC to holda public hearing before approving a license transfer. However, the NRC went ahead andapproved the transfer in November 2020 without any prior hearing. In January 2021, the
NRC denied any requests for hearings, which was followed by the filing of a lawsuit by the
New York state Attorney General on behalf of the state against the NRC in February 2021.
Apart from the rejection of any public hearings, the lawsuit was also motivated by financial
concerns, mainly on the question whether Holtec’s decommissioning plans will ensure
adequate funding for decommissioning and spent fuel management, for which Holtec also
intends to use the funds. The lawsuit challenges the NRC’s decision to allow Holtec to use
more than US$630 million of the plant’s dedicated decommissioning trust funds for spent
fuel management costs.954 As Holtec would supply the casks and spent fuel management,
the US$630 million of the decommissioning funds would go directly to the company itself.
In April 2021, the state withdrew the lawsuit after some arrangements were made between
951 - Rob Nikolewski, “Old reactor vessel from San Onofre nuclear plant heads to Utah”, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 May 2020,see https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2020-05-27/old-reactor-vessel-from-san-onofre-heads-toutah, accessed 7 June 2021.
952 - Darrell Proctor, “Indian Point Unit 2 Will Shut Down April 30”, POWER Mag, 27 April 2020, see https://www.powermag.com/
indian-point-unit-2-will-shut-down-april-30/, accessed 6 July 2021.
953 - American Nuclear Society, “N.Y. drops its objections to sale of Indian Point in deal with Holtec”, Nuclear News,
19 April 2021, see https://www.ans.org/news/article-2820/ny-drops-its-objections-to-sale-of-indian-point-in-deal-with-holtec/,
accessed 23 August 2021.
954 - Allison Dunne, “NYS AG Sues NRC Over Indian Point Decomissioning Matters”, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, 25 January 2021,
see https://www.wamc.org/post/nys-ag-sues-nrc-over-indian-point-decomissioning-matters, accessed 6 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Entergy, Holtec, New York State, and the involved environmental organizations. The parties
agreed, amongst other issues, that Holtec maintains a minimum balance of US$400 million in
the decommissioning trust fund for 10 years following the sale of the plant, and a minimum
balance of US$360 million in the funds at partial site release from the NRC for costs related
to waste management, and radiological cleanup of the site. Holtec has also agreed to return tothe fund 50 percent of the money recovered from the DOE for spent fuel management.955 The
transfer of ownership of the Indian Point nuclear power plant was completed in May 2021.956
In June 2019, the owner of Crystal River-3, Duke Energy, announced that it plans to sell theoperating license for Crystal River-3, which is currently in LTE, to the NorthStar and Orano
joint-venture Accelerated Decommissioning Partners (ADP). The US$540-million-deal
would foresee decommissioning the station by 2027, around 50 years earlier than anticipatedand US$260 million cheaper.957 In April 2020, the NRC approved the transfer. Under thisagreement, Duke Energy will remain the owner of the reactor and retain ownership andcontrol of the decommissioning fund, while ADP will become the NRC licensee responsible fordecommissioning the station. In October 2020, Duke Energy and ADP successfully completed
the transaction, after the Florida Public Service Commission’s approval in August 2020. ADP
became the licensed operator responsible for decommissioning. In addition, the company is
now the owner of the dry cask storage system, including the spent fuel.958
The infamous second unit of Three Mile Island (TMI) is owned by GPU Nuclear, a subsidiaryof FirstEnergy (which filed for bankruptcy in 2018). EnergySolutions negotiated with
GPU Nuclear on purchasing TMI-2, currently in LTE, and to complete its decommissioning.
The contract between EnergySolutions and the FirstEnergy subsidiary was signed in
October 2019 and the decommissioning responsibility will be transferred to EnergySolutions
subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions LLC. To perform the decommissioning work at TMI-2,
EnergySolutions and New Jersey-based construction company Jingoli formed a joint venture,
called ES/Jingoli Decommissioning LLC.959 In January 2021, the NRC agreed to the licensetransfer to EnergySolutions. Financial concerns remain, as the trust fund contains around
US$900 million, while decommissioning costs are estimated to be around US$1.32 billion,leaving a US$400 million shortfall. EnergySolutions aims to cut decommissioning time by
15 years—and release the site from regulatory control in 2037 instead of 2053—as well as
reducing decommissioning expenses to US$1.06 billion.960

955 - American Nuclear Society, “N.Y. drops its objections to sale of Indian Point in deal with Holtec”, Nuclear Newswire, 19 April 2021,
see https://www.ans.org/news/article-2820/ny-drops-its-objections-to-sale-of-indian-point-in-deal-with-holtec/, accessed 6 July 2021.
956 - WNN, “Indian Point sale completed as decommissioning under way”, 1 June 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Indian-Point-sale-completed-as-decommissioning-und, accessed 6 July 2021.
957 - Nuclear Energy Insider, “Crystal River to be decommissioned 50 years early”, Reuters, 5 June 2019,see https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/crystal-river-be-decommissioned-50-years-early, accessed 11 May 2020.
958 - Duke Energy, “Crystal River Nuclear Plant”, n.d., see https://www.duke-energy.com/Our-Company/About-Us/Power-Plants/
Crystal-River, accessed 6 July 2021.
959 - WNN, “EnergySolutions adds TMI-2 to decommissioning projects”, 16 October 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/EnergySolutions-takes-on-TMI-2-for-decommissioning, accessed 11 May 2020.
960 - John Stang, “Companies Aim to Cut Cost, Timeline for Three Mile Island Reactor Decommissioning”, ExchangeMonitor,
31 January 2020, see https://www.exchangemonitor.com/companies-aim-cut-cost-timeline-three-mile-island-reactordecommissioning/, accessed 7 June 2021.

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CanadaIn Canada, no commercial reactor has been decommissioned so far. As of mid-2021, six
reactors or 2.1 GW have been closed. Except for Gentilly-1, a Heavy-Water Moderated BoilingLight-Water Cooled Reactor (HWBLWR), all reactors are CANDU reactors (CANadian
Deuterium Uranium). Gentilly-1 plus the demonstration reactor in Rolphton and the Douglas
Point station are now licensed as waste facilities.961 All three reactors are owned by Atomic
Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), while Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is the operator
and license holder. Except for Gentilly-1, where full decommissioning plans have not yet beendeveloped, AECL plans to move forward with decommissioning. In March 2021, the Canadian
Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) granted a license amendment to the Douglas Point Waste
Facility to enter active decommissioning.962 The decommissioning process is expected to beconcluded with the complete removal of the facility by 2070. Spent fuel was transferred in
1987 to the on-site dry storage facility.963 WNISR2021 counts the Douglas Point reactor as in
the warm-up-stage. For the Rolphton reactor, CNL is proposing to demolish the above-groundstructures but to entomb the reactor. The remaining reactor components and installations
inside the underground concrete foundation structure would be filled with grout, capped withconcrete and covered with an engineered barrier and monitored for a minimum of 100 years.964
In December 2020, CNL resubmitted a revised environmental impact statement for theentombment strategy, which did not pass a completeness check.965
The decommissioning start of the Douglas Point reactor constitutes the first decommissioning
project for Canada and the worldwide first for a CANDU reactor. With only one reactor justentering the warm-up-stage, while the others are in LTE, there is no cost data for CANDU
reactors in Canada or elsewhere (see WNISR2018 for more details on the decommissioning
process and funding system in Canada).

Japan
As of mid-June 2021, 27 reactors or 17.1 GW were permanently disconnected from the grid inJapan. Japan, one of the early adopters of nuclear power, has not completed decommissioningof a single commercial reactor. The only completed decommissioning project involves the small
12-MW research reactor Japan Power Demonstration Reactor (JPDR), which was released as agreenfield site in 2002.
Since WNISR2020, there was no tangible process in decommissioning in Japan.
961 - CNSC, “Nuclear Power Plants - Decommissioning activities”, 28 October 2016,see https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/index.cfm#DA, accessed 2 May 2018.
962 - CNSC, “Commission grants licence amendment to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to enter active decommissioning for
Douglas Point Waste Facility”, News Release, 15 March 2021, see https://www.canada.ca/en/nuclear-safety-commission/news/2021/03/
commission-grants-licence-amendment-to-canadian-nuclear-laboratories-to-enter-active-decommissioning-for-douglas-point-wastefacility.html, accessed 26 May 2021.
963 - Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, “Decommissioning the Douglas Point facility”, 3 February 2020,see https://pub-kincardine.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=3382, accessed 5 July 2021.
964 - AECL, “Environmental Stewardship—Nuclear Power Demonstration Reactor”, n.d.,see https://www.aecl.ca/environmental-stewardship/nuclear-power-demonstration/, accessed 5 July 2021.
965 - CNL, “NPD – Latest EIS update”, 29 March 2021, see https://www.cnl.ca/success_stories/latest-eis-update-2/,
accessed 5 July 2021.

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In 2020, Kyushu Electric Power filed the decommissioning license for the Genkai-2 reactor with
the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). Defueling is expected to occur from 2026 to
2040. Kyushu Electric Power also asked approval for a change to its ongoing decommissioning
plan for Genkai-1, which would push back the completion target-date from 2043 to 2054 forboth units. According to the operator, the reason for this, is that the slowdown of Unit 1 would
allow the decommissioning process to catch up with Unit 2, so that decommissioning works atboth units can be carried out simultaneously.966
In April 2021, Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved of the decommissioning
plans for the four reactors of the Fukushima Daiini station. Decommissioning plans were
submitted by TEPCO in May 2020. Currently, around 10,000 fuel assemblies are still stored
in the cooling pools of the four reactors. TEPCO estimates that defueling will take 22 years.
The overall decommissioning process is expected to be completed by 2064 and is currently
estimated to cost more than US$2.5 billion excluding fuel disposal.967 In October 2020, the NRA
also approved the decommissioning license for Ikata-2. Defueling of the reactor is scheduled tobe carried out during the preparatory stage lasting ten years. Overall decommissioning shouldtake about 40 years.968
The general regulation in Japan stipulates that the licensed operator of a nuclear power plantis responsible for decommissioning. Historically, electric utilities had to establish tangible
fixed assets for decommissioning during the period of operation through surcharges on theretail price of electricity and based on the output of a plant.969 The Fukushima disaster in 2011,
however, caused the shutdown of all operating plants by 2014 and thus a halt to the allocationof funds resulting in a shortage of decommissioning capital. In accordance with a Ministerial
Ordinance in 2013970, total asset retirement costs related to decommissioning are henceforth
allocated by the straight-line method over the period of operation and LTE. As a response to
3/11, the surcharges were decoupled from the electricity output of a given reactor. To cover thefinancial shortage, many operators chose to postpone decommissioning in order to collect moremoney. The standard decommissioning scenario in Japan now includes a period of LTE of up
to fifteen years before the plant enters the hot-zone-stage, while the overall decommissioning
process is estimated to last between 25 and 40 years.971
In 2015, the Power Generation Cost Analysis Working Group of the Ministry for Economy
Trade and Industry (METI) estimated an average of ¥71.6 billion (US$600 million) per

966 - Asian Power, “Kyushu Electric Power to decommission Genkai-2 Nuclear Power Plant”, 2020, see https://asian-power.com/powerutility/news/kyushu-electric-power-decommission-genkai-2-nuclear-power-plant, accessed 6 July 2021.
967 - NEI, “Japan’s NRA approves decommissioning plan for Fukushima Daiini”, 29 April 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newsjapans-nra-approves-decommissioning-plan-for-fukushima-daiini-8708800, accessed 6 July 2021.
968 - WNN, “Regulator approves Ikata 2 decommissioning plan”, 7 October 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Regulator-approves-Ikata-2-decommissioning-plan, accessed 6 July 2021.
969 - Chubu Electric Power Company, “Quarterly Financial Report for the Nine Months Period Ended December 31, 2013”,
31 January 2014.
970 - METI, “Ordinance No. 52”, 30 September 2013.
971 - Jochen Latz, Katsuhiro Sato et al., “Decommissioning and dismantling Japan’s nuclear power plants”, McKinsey & Company,
8 September 2020, see https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/decommissioning-anddismantling-japans-nuclear-power-plants, accessed 8 September 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 reactor.972 An assessment reported by the Institute of Energy Economics of Japan (IEEJ)
expects decommissioning costs at an average of ¥68 billion (US$560 million) per reactor.973
Another issue for the decommissioning process in Japan is that under ministerial guidelines,
companies are permitted to temporarily divert decommissioning funds for other businesspurposes and thus risking that the funds are not available when needed. This has come to lightin November 2017, with Japan Atomic Power Co using its decommissioning fund to cover costsof building the Tsuruga nuclear power station Units 3 and 4, which were later abandoned974(see WNISR­2018, WNISR2019 for more details).

South Korea
South Korea is running a large nuclear program, including 24 operating reactors and four units
under construction. As of mid-2021, two commercial reactors had been closed: South Korea’s
oldest unit Kori-1, a 576 MW PWR, and Wolsong-1, a 661 MW Pressurized Heavy-Water
Reactor (PHWR). Wolsong-1 ceased generating power in May 2017 but was officially closed
only in December 2019.975
Since WNISR2020, there was no tangible progress in decommissioning in South Korea. A final
and detailed decommissioning plan for Kori-1 was submitted by Korea Hydro and Nuclear
Power (KHNP) to the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) in May 2021.976
Decommissioning is estimated to start in mid-2022 and last until December 2032.977 According
to the new plan, the decommissioning cost estimate increased from around US$2017570 million
or US$2017990/kW978 to around US$2021719 million (KRW2020812.9 billion)979.
In the next decades, South Korea is expected to build up its own decommissioning industry.
In early 2020, South Korea announced plans to launch the construction of an institute thatwill develop decommissioning technologies, which is part of Government plans to access a
global decommissioning market. Two establishments are planned: one focusing on LWRs andthe other one on PHWRs980 (see WNISR2019 for details on the decommissioning process inSouth Korea).
972 - Based on a calculation estimate for a sample plant, then for the other reactors multiplied with the generation output; thecosts include an enclosure period of ten years. Power Generation Cost Analysis Working Group, “Report on Analysis of Generation
Costs, Etc. for Subcommittee on Long-term Energy Supply-Demand Outlook”, METI, May 2015, see https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2015/pdf/0716_01b.pdf, accessed 23 August 2021.
973 - Yuhji Matsuo, Kei Shimogori and Atsuhiko Suzuki, “Major Issues Regarding Nuclear Power Generation Costs Assessment inJapan”, IEEJ Energy Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2, January 2015, see https://eneken.ieej.or.jp/data/6474.pdf, accessed 23 August 2021.
974 - Sasai Tsuneo, “Japan Atomic Power in dire straits after diverting funds”, The Asahi Shimbun, 17 November 2017.
975 - KHNP, “Nuclear Power Operation - Plant Status”, 31 December 2018, see http://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/content/529/main.
do?mnCd=EN03020101, accessed 27 March 2019.
976 - WNN, “KHNP applies to dismantle Kori 1”, 14 May 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/KHNP-applies-todismantle-Kori-1, accessed 8 July 2021.
977 - Jane Chung, “South Korea to complete dismantling of oldest nuclear reactor by 2032”, Reuters, 19 June 2017,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-nuclear-idUSKBN19A02R, accessed 26 June 2019.
978 - Ibidem.
979 - Jung Min-hee, “Decommissioning Plan Released for Kori Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1”, Business Korea, 30 June 2020,see http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=48258, accessed 5 July 2021.
980 - David Dalton, “Seoul To Build Institute For Nuclear Decommissioning”, NucNet, 22 April 2020,see https://www.nucnet.org/news/seoul-to-build-institute-for-nuclear-decommissioning-4-3-2020, accessed 11 May 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 FranceIn February 2020, France closed Unit 1 of the Fessenheim station, followed by Unit 2 inJune 2020. These represent the first large PWRs to enter decommissioning in France. The
closed French reactor fleet now includes 14 reactors (8 GCR, 1 HWGCR, 2 FBR, 3 PWR) or
5.6 GW.981 French regulation states that decommissioning has to begin immediately afterreactor closure, but depending on the type of reactor, this could mean many years up to several
decades.
Currently, decommissioning work is ongoing at 14 units:
ɆɆ Four reactors are in the warm-up stage: Brennilis, Phénix, Fessenheim-1, and Fessenheim-2;
ɆɆ two reactors are in the hot-zone: Superphénix, and Chooz-A;ɆɆ eight reactors are in LTE: Bugey-1, Chinon A-1, A-2, A-3, St Laurent A-1, A-2, G-2 and G-3 at
Marcoule.
There was no tangible progress in decommissioning since 2019. The completion of thedecommissioning of the HWR EL-4 on the Brennilis was postponed again by two years, withthe earliest possible completion in 2040. The plant should be in the hot-zone between 2022
and 2035.982
With 56 PWRs, French utility EDF operates the most standardized fleet in the world. Until the
Fessenheim station was closed, the only closed PWR was Chooz-A, where decommissioning is
expected to be completed by 2025.983 For Fessenheim, EDF foresees a post-operational stageof five years. The reactors have been defueled. All spent fuel has been moved to the spent
fuel pool, which is in a separate building.984 In the next few years, spent fuel will be removed
from the pools and sent to the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of La Hague. During the postoperational phase, non-nuclear installations will be dismantled too. After this stage, the partial
dismantling of the reactor will begin in 2025, during which all the buildings—except for thereactor building—will be dismantled. During this period, the reactor will be isolated and undersurveillance.985 The dismantling of the nuclear island will be carried out in the final stage
and last around five years; decommissioning of Fessenheim is thus scheduled to take around20 years. EDF has undertaken to reclassify the site by 2041 and keep it “for industrial use”,
which has yet to be defined.986
981 - In addition, there is the military reactor G-1 on the Marcoule site, closed in 1968 and under decommissioning ever since.
982 - IRSN, “Les démantèlements d’installations nucléaires en France – Les démantèlements en cours chez EDF, Areva et au CEA”,
2020 (in French), see https://www.irsn.fr/FR/connaissances/Installations_nucleaires/demantelement/demantelement-Francecentrales-installations-nucleaires-EDF-recherche-militaire/Pages/2-centrales-installations-nucleaires-en-cours-France.aspx,
accessed 5 July 2021.
983 - Bertrand Martelet, “EDF’s Expertise and Position in Nuclear Decommissioning”, presented at the World Nuclear
Decommissioning & Waste Management Congress, September 2016.
984 - Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector of Baden-Württemberg, “Fessenheim (Frankreich)”,
4 December 2020 (in German), see https://um.baden-wuerttemberg.de/en/umwelt-natur/kernenergie-und-strahlenschutz/
kerntechnische-anlagen/grenznahe-kernkraftwerke/fessenheim-frankreich/, accessed 5 July 2021.
985 - Adélaïde Tenaglia, “Fessenheim: comment démantèle-t-on une centrale nucléaire?”, Le Parisien, 19 February 2020 (in French),see http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/fessenheim-comment-demantele-t-on-une-centrale-nucleaire-19-02-2020-8262930.php,
accessed 11 May 2020.
986 - Adrien Dentz, “Le complexe et coûteux démantèlement de la centrale nucléaire de Fessenheim”, Le Monde, 20 February 2020
(in French), see https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/02/20/le-complexe-et-couteux-demantelement-de-la-centralenucleaire-de-fessenheim_6030185_3234.html, accessed 11 May 2020.

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For the entire PWR fleet, in 2015, EDF expected total costs of around €75 billion(US$201582 billion) but only €23 billion (US$26 billion) are covered by earmarked investments.
In a recent report on the technical and financial feasibility of the decommissioning process, theFrench National Assembly alleged that EDF shows excessive optimism.987 The report concluded
that decommissioning and clean-up will take more time, that the technical feasibility is not
fully assured, and that the process will likely cost overall much more than EDF anticipates.
Table 16 shows the current status of reactor decommissioning in France (See WNISR2018 fordetails).
Table 16 – Status of Reactor Decommissioning in France (as of May 2021)
Closed Reactor Status in France“Warm-up-stage”

May 2018

May 2019

May 2020

May 2021

3

3

4

4

of which defueled

2

2

1

1

“Hot-zone-stage”

1

1

2

2

“Ease-off-stage”

0

0

0

0

LTE

8

8

8

8

Completedof which released from regulatory control

0

0

0

0

Total Closed Reactors

12

0

0
12

0
14

0
14

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021.

Lithuania
In Lithuania, two RBMK Chernobyl-type reactors with 1185 MW each were closed in 2004 and2009 respectively as a requirement for Lithuania to join the European Union. The two reactor
cores are defueled and in May 2021, the last spent fuel assemblies were removed from the poolof Unit 1 and transported to the interim dry storage facility. The complete removal of the spent
fuel from Unit 2 is estimated to be achieved in October 2022.988 The decommissioning end-date
has, since 2011, been postponed by a further nine years to 2038. It is planned to decommission
Ignalina to “brownfield” status.989
The EU covers more than half of the decommissioning costs of Ignalina. EU-support budgeted
until 2020 has totaled €1.8 billion (US$2 billion).990 In 2021, the EU approved additional
funding of €552 million (US$647 million) for the period 2021–2027.991 Between 2010 and 2015,
987 - Mission d’information relative à la faisabilité technique et financière du démantèlement des installations nucléaires de base,“Rapport d’Information déposé en application de l’article 145 du règlement par la mission d’Information relative à la faisabilité
technique et financière du démantèlement des installations nucléaires de base”, N°4428, Commission du Développement Durable et del’Aménagement du Territoire, French National Assembly, 1 February 2017 (in French), see http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/pdf/
rap-info/i4428.pdf, accessed 18 August 2018.
988 - State Enterprise Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, “No spent nuclear fuel left in the Unit 1 of Ignalina NPP”, Press Release,
1 May 2021, see https://www.iae.lt/en/news/press-releases/no-spent-nuclear-fuel-left-in-the-unit-1-of-ignalina-npp/700,
accessed 6 July 2021.
989 - European Court of Auditors, “EU Nuclear Decommissioning Assistance Programmes in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia:
Some Progress Made Since 2011, But Critical Changes Ahead”, Special Report, No.22, 2016, see http://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/
ECADocuments/SR16_22/SR_NUCLEAR_DECOMMISSIONING_EN.pdf, accessed 20 June 2019.
990 - Ibidem.
991 - OJEU, “Council Regulation (EU) 2021/101 of 25 January 2021 establishing the nuclear decommissioning assistance programme of
the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1369/2013”, Document 32021R0101, 1 February 2021,
see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/101/oj, accessed 24 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 costs increased by 67 percent to an estimated total of €3.4 billion (US$3.8 billion). If high-level
waste management and spent fuel disposal were included, the total costs were estimated atclose to €6 billion (US$6.8 billion) and the financing gap would more than double to reach€4.2 billion (US$4.7 billion).992 In addition, Lithuania faces a lack of qualified engineers fordecommissioning, as this is the first RBMK decommissioning project worldwide; qualified
international experts are also missing. (See WNISR2019 for details on the decommissioning in
Lithuania).

Italy
Following a referendum on the use of nuclear power in November 1987, triggered by the
Chernobyl accident in April 1986, Italy agreed to no longer generate nuclear electricity. The
PWR Enrico Fermi (Trino) produced its last kilowatt-hours in March 1987, the GCR Latina
and the BWR Caorso in 1986 and the BWR Garigliano in 1978.993 In 2017, Italy estimated thecost to decommission the four reactors and the associated waste management at €7.2 billion(US$20178.1 billion)994 , which has more than tripled since the closure of the reactors. The stateowned company Sogin (Società Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA), which was established during
the privatization process of Enel, is responsible for decommissioning,.
Since WNISR2020, not much has happened with respect to decommissioning. All four
closed reactors are in the warm-up stage and have been defueled. Sogin expects to complete
decommissioning of the PWR Enrico Fermi (Trino) to a brownfield site by 2029995, the BWR
Garigliano by 2026996, and the BWR Caorso by 2031.997 In 1999, Sogin took over ownershipof the only GCR in Italy, the Latina plant—defueled in the early 1990s—and expects
decommissioning up to the Brownfield Stage, with waste storage units onsite, to be completed
by 2027, and to cost €313 million (US$369 million).998. Wastes are currently stored on-site, but
the GCR Latina depends more than any other reactor on the opening of a national repository
as the dismantling of the reactor will produce around 2,000 tons of highly radioactive graphite.
The missing waste disposal infrastructure not only hinders the complete decommissioningof the reactors, Italy also has to rely on other countries for waste management treatment.
For instance, spent fuel of the LWRs was sent to France for reprocessing, and spent fuel ofthe Magnox reactor Latina to the U.K. Former operational wastes are sent to Slovakia for992 - European Court of Auditors, “EU Nuclear Decommissioning Assistance Programmes in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia: Some
Progress Made Since 2011, But Critical Changes Ahead”, 2016, op. cit.
993 - WNISR considers the day of the last electricity generation as the closure date.
994 - David Dalton, “Italy’s €7.2 Billion Decommissioning Cost Estimate Is Robust And Thorough, Says IAEA”, NucNet,
21 September 2017, see https://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2017/09/21/italy-s-7-2-billion-decommissioning-cost-estimate-is-robustand-thorough-says-iaea, accessed 24 August 2021.
995 - Sogin, “Trino Nuclear Power Plant”, Undated, see https://www.sogin.it/en/closureoftheitaliannuclearcycle/italian-nuclear-sites/
trinonuclearpowerplant/Pagine/default.aspx, accessed 24 August 2021.
996 - Sogin, “Garigliano nuclear power plant”, Undated, see https://www.sogin.it/en/closureoftheitaliannuclearcycle/italian-nuclearsites/gariglianonuclearpowerplant/Pagine/default.aspx, accessed 24 August 2021.
997 - Sogin, “Caorso nuclear power plant”, Undated, see https://www.sogin.it/en/closureoftheitaliannuclearcycle/italian-nuclear-sites/
caorsonuclearpowerplant/Pagine/default.aspx, accessed 24 August 2021.
998 - WNN, “Italy approves dismantling of Latina plant”, 2 June 2020, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Dismantling-ofItalys-Latina-plant-to-begin, accessed 6 July 2020; also Sogin, “Latina nuclear power plant”, Undated, see https://www.sogin.it/en/
closureoftheitaliannuclearcycle/italian-nuclear-sites/latinanuclearpowerplant/Pagine/default.aspx, accessed 29 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 incineration and conditioning999, while metal waste from decommissioning (of the Garigliano
reactor) are sent to EDF Cyclife’s subsidiary Cyclife Sweden AB in Sweden for treatment.1000(See WNISR2019 and WNISR2020 for details on the decommissioning process in Italy.)

United Kingdom
Since 1977, 32 reactors or 6.7 GW were closed in the U.K., consisting mainly of small, first
generation Gas-Cooled Reactors (GCRs), of the Magnox design (26 reactors). Decommissioningof this legacy fleet is the responsibility of the public body Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA). Some site decommissioning and remediation work has been undertaken at
most sites.
All Magnox sites are defueled and reprocessing of the Magnox fuel is estimated to be completed
by the end of 2021. Retrieval of the fuels from the legacy ponds (and silos) is still ongoing.
Reprocessing is not an option here, as much of this fuel is—due to its heavy degradation—not
suitable for reprocessing. This fuel is planned to be transferred into dry storage. Magnox Ltd.
has built all of its interim intermediate-level waste storage facilities and has implemented
conditioning capability at selected sites.
The NDA’s initial strategy for the Magnox reactors was to seal and store the biological shield,
the pressure vessel, the external pressure circuit, and steam generators, while the actual
dismantling of the reactors would begin only 85 years after the initial closure.1001 With thelatest strategy publication, which is effective since March 2021, the NDA concluded that a“blanket strategy” of deferred decommissioning across the Magnox fleet is not appropriate
and a site-specific strategy for each Magnox site will now be introduced, reflecting the natureand context of the facility or site in question.1002 The idea is that site-specific strategies1003 will
result in a rolling program for the decommissioning of the Magnox fleet, allowing to shareand implement lessons learned, and developing and implementing new technologies. The
graphite wastes contained in the reactor cores is a significant consideration when developing
site-specific strategies for reactor decommissioning. The Trawsfynydd site in Wales has beenchosen as a lead site for Magnox reactor decommissioning, primarily due to the extensive
degradation of the external structure since the station was closed thirty years ago (in 1991).
Substantial amounts of work would be required to make it safe for LTE.1004
In the past, the NDA sites were managed through private-sector consortia (see WNISR2018
and WNISR2019 for more details). This so-called Parent Body Organization (PBO) Model was
999 - WNN, “Next phase of Italian nuclear waste shipments to Slovakia begins”, 30 January 2020,see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Second-phase-of-shipments-of-Italian-waste-to-Slov, accessed 5 July 2021.
1000 - Cyclife, “Cyclife’s Swedish facility has started to receive SOGIN Garigliano NPP’s dismantling waste for treatment”, EDF
Group, 17 September 2020, see https://www.cyclife-edf.com/en/edf/cyclife-s-swedish-facility-to-start-the-treatment-of-sogingarigliano-npp-s-dismantling-waste, accessed 5 July 2021.
1001 - NDA, “Strategy – Effective from April 2016”, 1 April 2016, see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/
system/uploads/attachment_data/file/518669/Nuclear_Decommissioning_Authority_Strategy_effective_from_April_2016.pdf,
accessed 26 August 2021.
1002 - NDA, “Strategy – Effective from March 2021”, Corporate Report, 18 March 2021, see https://www.gov.uk/government/
publications/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-strategy-effective-from-march-2021, accessed 26 August 2021.
1003 - The strategy and plans for Harwell and Winfrith were not subject to review and remain unchanged.
1004 - NDA, “Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Strategy effective from March 2021”, op. cit.

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first abandoned in 2016 for the Sellafield complex, where a detailed NDA review concluded
that the PBO model was less suited for the complex, technical uncertainties at the Sellafieldsite.1005 Then in July 2018, the NDA announced that Magnox Ltd will also become a subsidiaryof the NDA.1006 In a 2018-report, the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee statedthe NDA failed in both the procurement and management of the Magnox contract (one of thehighest value and most important contracts awarded by the Government), e.g. the procurement
process was overly complex, the contract was awarded to the wrong bidder, the settlementof legal claims reached nearly £100 million [US$1362021 million] to a losing consortium, andthe scale of the work was drastically under-estimated.1007 In 2021, the NDA announced thatDounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) and Low Level Waste Repository Limited (LLWR
Limited) will also become wholly-owned subsidiaries in 2021.1008 These changes will markthe end of the NDA’s PBO model with all Site Licence Companies being wholly-owned NDA
subsidiaries. (See WNISR2018 for details on the decommissioning process in the U.K.).

Spain
Spain has a national policy for decommissioning its reactors, specified by the official
periodically updated “General Radioactive Waste Plan”.1009 In this plan, all decommissioning
and waste management activities are developed by the state-owned company Enresa (Empresa
Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos S.A.). While the LTE strategy is applied for the GCR
Vandellos-1, all LWRs are bound to be immediately dismantled to greenfield. Spain describes
decommissioning and waste management as an essential public service and assigns these tasks
by law to Enresa.1010
As of mid-2021, Spain has three closed reactors with a combined capacity of just over 1 GW.
There was no tangible progress in decommissioning since WNISR2020. José Cabrera-1, a 241MW Westinghouse PWR (1-Loop), which was closed in 2006 is still in the “ease-off stage”
and behind schedule, as it was expected to be completed in 2020. Vandellos-1, a 480-MW GCR
designed and supplied by the French state agency CEA, and was closed in 1990. Although some
limited decommissioning work was carried out, WNISR considers the reactor as in LTE, as themain decommissioning will be carried out after an enclosure period of 25 years. In March 2020,
Enresa has submitted an application for the transfer of ownership and decommissioningstart for the GE BWR at Santa Maria de Garoña to the Ministry for Ecological Transition
and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), which Enresa expects for 2022.1011 In March 2021,
1005 - NDA, “Explained: the new model for managing Sellafield”, Corporate Report, Updated 1 April 2016, see https://www.gov.uk/
government/publications/new-model-for-managing-sellafield/explained-the-new-model-for-managing-sellafield, accessed 16 May 2017.
1006 - NDA and Magnox Ltd, “Magnox Limited to become a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority subsidiary”, Press Release,
2 July 2018, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/magnox-limited-to-become-a-nuclear-decommissioning-authority-subsidiary,
accessed 26 August 2021.
1007 - Public Accounts Committee, “The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Magnox contract”, House of Commons,
27 February 2018, see https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/461/46103.htm#_idTextAnchor000,
accessed 26 August 2021.
1008 - NDA, “Strategy – Effective from March 2021”, March 2021, op. cit.
1009 - Enresa, “General Radioactive Waste Plan”, Updated June 2006, see https://www.enresa.es/eng/index/about-enresa/generalradioactive-waste-plan, accessed 26 August 2021.
1010 - By Article 38 bis of Law 25/1964 of the Nuclear Energy Act.
1011 - WNN, “Decommissioning application submitted for Garoña”, 26 May 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Decommissioning-application-submitted-for-Garona, accessed 26 May 2020.

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the Subdirectorate General for Nuclear Energy announced its decommissioning plan: thefirst phase, which includes the dismantling of the interior of the turbine building in order to
use it as a waste management facility, is expected to take 18 months, then the second phaseof decommissioning work (hot-zone, ease-off) will be the subject of another authorization,
including a corresponding environmental impact assessment.1012 The reactor is currently in thewarm-up stage. (See WNISR2019 for details on the decommissioning process in Spain).

RussiaAs of mid-2021, Russia has nine closed reactors with a combined capacity of 3 GW consistingof two different reactor types: six first-generation Light-Water Gas-cooled Reactors (LWGR)
among them two Chernobyl-type reactors RBMK, and three Soviet-style PWRs. In Russia,
there was no tangible progress in reactor decommissioning in 2019–2021. With the latest
closure of Leningrad-2, a pilot and demonstration engineering center for decommissioning
was created at the site to test and probe decommissioning technologies. This constitutes thesecond engineering center in the country, with the first being at the Novovoronezh site.1013 As
long as there is no clear evidence of decommissioning progress, WNISR considers the Russian
reactors as in LTE, based on long anticipated decommissioning duration of 50 years and unclear
decommissioning strategies (see WNISR2019 for details on decommissioning in Russia).
According to Rosatom, as of the end of 2017, 38 billion rubles (US$2017659 million) wereaccumulated in the “special reserve funds”.1014 To put the amount into perspective, this is
not even covering the estimated decommissioning costs for the four Leningrad reactors
alone. In addition, if the numbers from Lithuania’s Ignalina site are taken as reference, thedecommissioning of the four Leningrad RBMKs will cost more likely around €7 billion(US$8.3 billion).1015 It seems that, in addition to technological challenges with dismantling,Russia has not set aside appropriate funding for decommissioning and has been heavily
underestimating costs. It is unclear how Russia will handle this challenge in the future. One
short-term option would be the long-term enclosure of closed reactors, while other units still
generate income. A much riskier strategy that Russia has apparently adopted consists in thebuilding of new reactors dedicated to generate income to replace ageing, life-extended units,1016
pushing the financing challenge further into the future.

1012 - NEI, “Spain announces plans for dismantling Garona NPP”, 18 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsspainannounces-plans-for-dismantling-garona-npp-8609381, accessed 5 July 2021.
1013 - WNN, “Russia establishes RBMK decommissioning technology centre”, 23 July 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Russia-establishes-RBMK-decommissioning-technology, accessed 6 July 2021.
1014 - NIW, “Back-End: Rosatom Grapples With Challenges of RBMK Dismantling”, 25 January 2019.
1015 - Ibidem.
1016 - Oskar Njaa, Nils Bøhmer and Charles Digges, “Russian Nuclear Power 2018”, Bellona, 28 August 2018,see https://bellona.org/publication/25568, accessed 26 August 2021.

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CONCLUSION ON REACTOR DECOMMISSIONING
Reactor decommissioning is an important element of the nuclear power system, but its technicaland financial challenges are still largely underestimated. The size of the decommissioning
activities is increasing rapidly, though: assuming a 40-year average lifetime, a further
180 reactors would close by 2030 (reactors connected to the grid between 1981 and 1990); andan additional 132 will be closed by 2060; this does not even account for the 99 reactors whichstarted operating before 1981, an additional 26 reactors in Long-Term Outage (LTO) and the
53 reactors under construction as of mid-2021.
Around 60 percent of the 196 reactors already closed are located in Europe (93 in Western
Europe and 24 in Central & Eastern Europe), followed by North America (46 reactors),
and Asia (33 reactors). As of mid-2021, 176 units are globally awaiting or in various stagesof decommissioning, seven more than in the first half of 2020. Since WNISR2020, sevenadditional reactors (5.5 GW) have officially been closed: two each in the U.S. and the U.K., andone each in Russia, Sweden and Taiwan.
Since WNISR2020 no reactor completed decommissioning. Worldwide, a total of 20 reactors
with a combined capacity of around 6.4 GW have completed the technical decommissioning
process. This represents only 6.7 percent of the total 90.4 GW withdrawn from the grid.
The average worldwide duration of the decommissioning process, independent of the chosen
strategy, has been around 20 years, with a very high variance: the minimum of six years forthe 22-MW Elk River plant, and the maximum of 42 years for the 17-MW CVTR (CarolinasVirginia Tube Reactor), both small reactors, both in the U.S. Many of the decommissioned
reactors are rather small, averaging a nominal capacity of 300 MW compared to the averagecapacity of 427 MW of the remaining 176 reactors undergoing or awaiting decommissioning,
the historic experience of the decommissioning duration cannot be taken as exemplary for all
upcoming decommissioning projects.
The country case-studies’ updates suggest that both duration and costs have beensystematically and significantly underestimated. In nearly all the cases, the ongoing
decommissioning projects encounter delays as well as cost increases. The review of thedevelopments since WNISR2020 reflects the little progress that can be reported for most of
the reactors undergoing decommissioning.
The U.S. is still the most advanced country and has with 14 completed projects by far the mostdecommissioned reactors, representing around three quarters of the world total.
Germany is the second-most advanced country with five completed projects, although thisrepresents only around 1 GW of capacity. In three of five cases decommissioning lasted three
to four times as long as construction and operation combined. Where decommissioning costs
are available, they exceed construction costs.
Expanding the view from the 11 case studies to the global decommissioning industry showsthat international decommissioning progress is even lower with only 10 percent completed.
More than a third of the reactors (74) are in long-term enclosure (LTE).

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Globally, only one more reactor in the ease-off stage could be identified, the 10 MW BR-3
reactor in Belgium, which is expected to complete decommissioning to a greenfield site by2023.
Looking at the hot-zone stage, only five more reactors could be identified where the nuclear
island is currently being dismantled: the two Barsebäck units as well as the two Oskarshamn
units in Sweden, and on at the Bohunice site in Slovakia where decommissioning is the mostadvanced.
Table 12 gives an overview of reactor decommissioning worldwide. Only five countries having
experience in concluding hot-zone decommissioning works shows the great obstacles andchallenges that the majority of countries operating nuclear power plants will have to overcomein the near future. Worldwide decommissioning is only just beginning and has progressed very
slowly to date.

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POTENTIAL NEWCOMER
COUNTRIES
These “quick view”
indicators will be usedin the country sections
throughout the report.

ASIA
Bangladesh

2

The idea of building nuclear reactors at Rooppur goes back to even before Bangladesh became
an independent country, to a 1963 plan by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) tobuild one reactor in West Pakistan and one in East Pakistan.1017
In December 2015, an agreement was reportedly signed between the Bangladesh Atomic
Energy Commission (BAEC) and Rosatom for 2.4 GW of capacity, with work expected to begin
in 2016 and operation to start in 2022 and 2023.1018 Construction on Rooppur-1 and -2 beganin November 2017 and July 2018, respectively.1019 Current schedules suggest that commercial
operation for Unit 1 is expected in 2023 and Unit 2 in 2024.1020 Russia’s Novovoronezh II is thereference plant for the project. In November 2020, the pressure vessel for Unit 1 was shipped tothe site and in January 2021, the internals of the reactor core were delivered.1021
According to the nuclear deal, Russia would provide 90 percent of the funds on credit at aninterest rate of Libor plus 1.75 percent. Bangladesh will have to pay back the loan in 28 years with
10-year grace period. In late May 2016, negotiations were concluded over the US$12.65 billion
project, with Russia making available US$11.385 billion.1022 The government of Bangladesh has

1017 - IAEA, “Country Nuclear Power Profiles — Bangladesh”, Updated 2016, see https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Bangladesh/
Bangladesh.htm, accessed 1 May 2021.
1018 - WNN, “Bangladesh, Russia ink $12.65 billion Rooppur plant deal”, 29 December 2015, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
NN-Bangladesh-Russia-ink-12.65-billion-Rooppur-plant-deal-29121501.html, accessed 1 May 2021.
1019 - Rosatom, “First concrete poured at the constructed Rooppur NPP site (Bangladesh)”, 30 November 2017,see http://www.rusatom-overseas.com/media/news/first-concrete-poured-at-the-site-constructed-npp-rooppur-bangladesh.
html, accessed 4 August 2020; and Rosatom, “Main construction of the 2nd Unit of Rooppur NPP begins with the ‘ First Concrete’
ceremony”, Press Release, 14 July 2018, see http://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/main-construction-of-the-2nd-unit-of-rooppurnpp-begins-with-the-first-concrete-ceremony/, accessed 15 July 2018.
1020 - Ahmed Humayun Kabir Topu, “40pc of Rooppur Nuke Power Plant project completed”, The Daily Star, 26 July 2021,
see https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/40pc-rooppur-nuke-power-plant-project-completed-2137021,
accessed 31 July 2021.
1021 - NEI, “Russia ships reactor internals for Rooppur 1”, 21 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussia-shipsreactor-internals-for-rooppur-1-8466401/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1022 - NEI, “Russia initials credit agreement with Bangladesh for Rooppur NPP”, 30 May 2016, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsrussia-initials-credit-agreement-with-bangladesh-for-rooppur-npp-4907672/, accessed 1 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 exempted all taxes and duties which include regulatory duty, advanced VAT import duty, VAT
and supplementary duty on all imported goods, parts and machinery.1023
In January 2019, the Government of Bangladesh signed a nuclear support contract with Russia
for the supply of fuel during the operational life of the reactor,1024 with all used fuel to be sent
back to Russia for reprocessing.1025 In May 2020, a US$287.49 million agreement was signed
between the Nuclear Security and Physical Protection System Cell (NSPC) of the Bangladesh
Army and JSC Eleron, a Russian company, for the supply of physical protection systems at theplant.1026
Journalists and social activists have voiced concerns about various aspects of the project,including the impact on water use, the lack of preparedness of emergency planning, andpossible terrorist acts against the facility.1027 Others have pointed to the unsuitability of thesite, with concerns over flooding, earthquakes and shifting alluvial soil, plus water shortages
and high water temperatures that could affect cooling.1028 Critics of the project also claimed
that Bangladesh lacks the skilled labor and adequate regulators to oversee the operation of
the nuclear power plant.1029 Bangladesh clearly wants help from other countries, which might
explain why it appointed India’s Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP) in2017 to oversee the development and operation of the Rooppur nuclear facilities. Bangladesh
has also contracted with Indian company Larsen & Toubro to build the transmission lines
to carry electricity from Rooppur, with most of the funding for this coming from the Exim
Bank of India, but this might result in the project getting behind schedule because of delays inreceiving the approval for the financing.1030
The project’s economics have been widely questioned. Earlier in 2017, a retired nuclear engineer
who had been involved in advising the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC),
argued in one of the leading English-language newspapers in Bangladesh that the country
was “paying a heavy price” for BAEC not having “undertaken a large-scale programme ofrecruitment, and training of engineers”; he also charged that Bangladesh was buying reactors
at the “unreasonable and unacceptable” price of US$5,500/kW because its “negotiators didn’t
have the expertise to properly scrutinize the quoted price”.1031 There have been reports about
1023 - Khondaker Golam Moazzem, “The Power and Energy Sector of Bangladesh: Challenges of Moving beyond the Transition
Stage”, Center for Policy Dialogue, March 2019, see https://cpd.org.bd/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Power-and-Energy-Sector-ofBangladesh.pdf, accessed 1 May 2021.
1024 - Energy Bangla, “Nuclear Fuel Supply Deal signed with Russia for RNPP”, 31 January 2019, see http://energybangla.com/nuclearfuel-supply-deal-signed-with-russia-for-rnpp/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1025 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Bangladesh”, January 2021, op. cit.
1026 - The Financial Express, “Rooppur nuke plant: $287.49m deal signed for physical protection system”, 29 May 2020,see https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/rooppur-nuke-plant-28749m-deal-signed-for-physical-protection-system-1590767660,
accessed 1 May 2021.
1027 - Petr Topychkanov, “Why the Bangladeshi public has concerns over the Rooppur nuclear project”, Russia Beyond,
27 February 2017, see https://www.rbth.com/blogs/south_asian_outlook/2017/02/27/why-the-bangladeshi-public-has-concerns-overthe-rooppur-nuclear-project_709866, accessed 1 May 2021.
1028 - Rakesh Sharma, “Is Bangladesh Ready for Nuclear?”, NIW, 22 December 2017.
1029 - NIW, “Bangladesh”, 1 December 2017.
1030 - Dhaka Tribune, “Delays in Rooppur power transmission project likely”, 23 October 2020, see https://www.dhakatribune.
com/bangladesh/nation/2020/10/23/delays-in-rooppur-power-transmission-project-likely; and Eyamin Sajid, “India’s L&T to build
transmission lines for Rooppur plant”, The Business Standard, see https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/indias-lt-build-transmissionlines-rooppur-plant-194038, both accessed 21 August 2021.
1031 - Abdul Matin, “The economics of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant”, The Daily Star, 2 March 2017, see http://www.thedailystar.
net/op-ed/economics/the-economics-the-rooppur-nuclear-power-plant-1369345, accessed 17 May 2017.

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corruption in the construction of the nuclear plant, although these allegations largely revolvearound materials for housing of plant workers and their families.1032
Nuclear power is projected in the Bangladesh Revised Power Sector Master Plan to accountfor about 4 percent of electricity generation in 2030. However, according to a report publishedby the Atlantic Council even this small contribution is not necessary, and “Bangladesh canmove towards a more sustainable, lower carbon future by limiting coal development, installing
efficient natural gas, expanding renewables, and improving end-use energy efficiency”.1033
The Bangladesh renewable energy strategy had envisaged that by 2020 they would provide
10 percent of power but achieved just 3 percent with a modest installed capacity of 700 MW—
the original target is likely to be met only by 2025. With land shortages increased consideration
is given to the use of rooftop or floating solar. The cost of rooftop solar is thought to be in therange of US$¢3–4/kWh.1034

Suspended or Cancelled ProgramsIndonesia
Indonesia is ranked sixteenth in terms of GDP and in 2020 was the only one of three countries
in the Top 201035 the others being Australia and Saudi Arabia, that have not deployed nuclear
power. However, in 1997 a Nuclear Energy Law was adopted that gave guidance on construction,
operation, and decommissioning. After various attempts, in December 2015, the government
pulled the plug on all nuclear plans, even for the longer-term future.
However, in July 2020, the U.S.-based nuclear company Thorcon International and Indonesia’s
Defense Ministry signed an MOU to study developing a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR)
for either power generation or marine vehicle propulsion.1036 Indonesia is thought to haveconsiderable thorium reserves and researchers are looking at the extraction of uranium andthorium from unconventional sources, particularly monazite, which is often co-located withthe country’s tin ore mining. Indonesia is the world’s largest tin producer.1037
The latest revision of the new- and renewable-energy policy mix mentions that nuclear will be
only considered should the renewable energy target to produce 23 percent of power by 2025

1032 - The Daily Star, “Corruption in Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant: HC seeks to know steps”, 2 July 2019,see https://www.thedailystar.net/city/corruption-in-rooppur-power-plant-hc-seeks-know-steps-1765591, accessed 28 May 2020.
1033 - Robert F. Ichord, “Transforming the Power Sector in Developing Countries: Geopolitics, poverty, and climate change in
Bangladesh”, Atlantic Council, January 2020, see https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/transformingthe-power-sector-in-developing-countries-geopolitics-poverty-and-climate-change-in-bangladesh/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1034 - Vandana Gombar, “Bangladesh Set to Cross 1-Gigawatt Renewables Mark: Q&A”, BloombergNEF, 9 November 2020,see https://about.bnef.com/blog/bangladesh-set-to-cross-1-gigawatt-renewables-mark-qa/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1035 - World Development Indicators Database, “Gross Domestic Product 2020”, World Bank, 1 July 2021,
see https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf, accessed 19 August 2021.
1036 - NEI, “Indonesia signs MOU on molten salt reactor”, 31 July 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsindonesia-signsmou-on-molten-salt-reactor-8055819/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1037 - Sung-Mi Kim, “Indonesia’s Nuclear Dream, Revived?”, The Diplomat, 31 December 2021, see https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/
indonesias-nuclear-dream-revived/, accessed 1 May 2021.

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not be achieved,1038 which may be indeed tough to meet, considering the 12-percent level in
2020.1039

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan operated a small fast breeder reactor, the BN350 at Aktau, between 1972–1998 andis one of three countries in the world to have abandoned commercial nuclear power, the others
being Italy and Lithuania. But in contrast to the other countries Kazakhstan has considerable
uranium reserves and Kazatomprom is the world’s largest producer. Kazakhstan has had
discussions with countries and reactor suppliers. In April 2019, during a meeting between
President Putin of Russia and Kazakhstan’s President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, it was suggested
that Russia help in the construction of a nuclear power plant at Ulken in the southeastern
Almaty Province. Soon after this, Deputy Kazakh Energy Minister Magzum Mirzagaliev
said there was no “concrete decision” to construct a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan.1040
Meanwhile the country is investing in renewable energy and in 2019, twenty-one renewableprojects attracted US$613 million in investments and Central Asia’s largest solar power plant,
the 100-MW-Saran solar project, built by German developers, began operating the same
year.1041

ThailandIn June 2007, in Thailand the cabinet set up the Nuclear Power Program Development Officeunder the National Energy Policy Council and appointed an Infrastructure Establishment
Committee, the Nuclear Power Utility subcommittee of which is supervising the electricity
utility (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand or EGAT) in assessing the options fornuclear power. Since then, various policy options and companies have been considered, andin April 2017, China and Thailand signed a nuclear co-operation agreement. At that occasion,
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) stated that “China is very willing to provide
Thailand with the most advanced, most economical and safest nuclear power technology, as
well as equipment, management experience and quality service.”1042 However, since then, there
seems to have been no progress in developing nuclear power in Thailand.

1038 - Norton Rose Fulbright, “Renewable energy snapshot: Indonesia”, April 2019, see https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/
knowledge/publications/0552a1f0/renewable-energy-snapshot-indonesia, accessed 1 May 2021.
1039 - McKinsey & Company, “Ten ways to boost Indonesia’s energy sector”, December 2020, see https://www.mckinsey.com/
industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/ten-ways-to-boost-indonesias-energy-sector-in-a-postpandemic-world#, accessed 1 May 2021.
1040 - Bruce Pannier, “Putin Offers Russian Help To Build Kazakh Nuclear Plant”, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, 6 April 2019,see https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-putin-offers-russian-nuclear-plant-help/29865177.html, accessed 1 May 2021.
1041 - Vlagyiszlav Makszimov and, “Kazakhstan approves new green projects in a bid to cut fossil fuels in half by 2050”, The AstanaTimes, as published by Euractiv, 25 May 2020, see https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/kazakhstan-approves-newgreen-projects-in-a-bid-to-cut-fossil-fuels-in-half-by-2050/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1042 - WNN, “China, Thailand agree to nuclear energy cooperation”, 5 April 2017, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-ChinaThailand-agree-to-nuclear-energy-cooperation-0504174.html, accessed 1 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan has announced its intention to develop nuclear power, with the help of Russia. In an
April 2019 interview with Nuclear Engineering International (NEI), Jurabek Mirzamakhmudov,
director general of Uzatom, announced site analysis work over the following 18 months at threelocations. Mirzamakhmudov says that they have chosen the VVER-1200 reactor design, which
would be financed through an engineering, procurement and construction agreement via a soft
loan from Russia. The reactors would provide power for domestic consumption, but some of it
could also be exported to neighboring countries such as Afghanistan.1043 It was later stated thatthe intention was to choose a site, and have it licensed by September 2020,1044 which did not
happen. A ten-year plan for electricity provision was developed with the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. It aims to deploy up to 30 GW of additional power capacity
by 2030, including 5 GW of PV, 3.8 GW of hydropower, 2.4 GW of nuclear and up to 3 GW ofwind energy.1045

VietnamVietnam, with its growing economy and energy demand, for decades had been seen a model
country to develop nuclear power, and in October 2010, Vietnam signed an intergovernmental
agreement with Russia’s Atomstroyexport to build the Ninh Thuan-1 nuclear power plant, using
VVER-1200 reactors. Construction was expected to begin in 2014, with the turnkey project
being owned and operated by the state utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN). A second agreement
was also signed with Japanese companies to develop an additional plant.1046 However, ambitions
were severely curtailed in November 2016, when 92 percent of the members of the National
Assembly approved a government motion to cancel the proposed nuclear projects with both
Russia and Japan, due to slowing electricity demand increases, concerns about safety, andrising construction costs.1047
Despite this, a draft power plan published by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in July 2020
envisages building nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1 GW by 2040 and 5 GW by 2045.1048
This would require the restart of program preparations in the second half of the 2020s.
In the meantime, the deployment of solar PV is happening at a remarkable scale. In December
2020 alone, a record 6.7 GW of rooftop solar was installed, making a total of 9.3 GW during theyear. The country counts already over 100,000 rooftop solar installations. The latest Power
Development Plan schedules no additional coal-fired plants during 2026–2030 with 9.5 GW

1043 - NEI, “Uzbekistan’s nuclear aspirations”, 9 April 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureuzbekistans-nuclearaspirations-7145738/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1044 - WNN, “Russia and Uzbekistan agree to start survey of new plant site”, 17 May 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Russia-and-Uzbekistan-agree-to-start-survey-of-new, accessed 1 May 2021.
1045 - NEI, “Uzbekistan’s energy plans”, 29 July 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureuzbekistans-energyplans-8051183/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1046 - WNN, “Vietnam prepares for nuclear power”, 6 October 2011, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Vietnamprepares-for-nuclear-power, accessed 1 May 2021.
1047 - NIW, “Briefs – Vietnam”, 28 November 2016.
1048 - Anh Minh, “Vietnam mulls return to nuclear energy after 2035”, VnExpress International, 9 July 2020, see https://e.vnexpress.
net/news/business/economy/vietnam-mulls-return-to-nuclear-energy-after-2035-4127854.html, accessed 1 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 coal projects scrapped, while solar and wind are predicted to make up 28 percent of total
system capacity in 2030 and 41 percent in 2045.

MIDDLE EAST
Egypt
The Egyptian nuclear vision began in the mid-1950s with the establishment of the Egyptian
Atomic Energy Commission (currently known as the Atomic Energy Authority). Egypt started
to explore the possibilities of building nuclear power reactors in the mid-1960s and establishedthe Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) in the mid-1970s. Initial plans envisioned
10 reactors being operational by the end of the century.
Despite discussions with Chinese, French, German, and Russian suppliers, little development
occurred for several decades except for selecting, in 1984, Dabaa on Egypt’s Mediterranean
coastline to host Egypt’s first nuclear power plant.1049 Nuclear plans were suspended indefinitely
after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and only in 2006, under former President Hosni Mubarak,
was it announced that plans were to be revived.
In recent years, Egypt has stepped up its efforts and in February 2015, Rosatom and Egypt’s
NPPA signed a cooperation agreement, followed in November 2015 by an intergovernmental
agreement for the construction of four VVER-1200 reactors at Dabaa, for a total installedcapacity of 4.8 GW.1050
In May 2016 it was announced that Egypt had concluded a US$25 billion loan with Russia
for nuclear construction, at three percent interest for 85 percent of the construction cost,to be paid back through the sale of electricity scheduled to begin on 15 October 2029.1051 In
December 2017, the construction cost of the project was reported to be US$30 billion.1052
Three other deals were signed to cover the supply of nuclear fuel for 60 years, operation andmaintenance for the first 10 years of operation, and training of personnel.
The current phase is focused on site preparation and licensing and is already behind schedule.
The site chosen for construction lies 300 km from Cairo at El-Dabaa city in the Governorateof Matrouh on the north-west coast of Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea. In December 2018,
Anatolos Kovatnov, the head of engineering work at the El Dabaa project, stated that
Rosatom had submitted all the documents required, and hoped to obtain the permits to start
construction at the first unit of the Dabaa plant in 2020.1053 In March 2019, the Egyptian1049 - Joy Nasr and Ali Ahmad, “Middle East Nuclear Energy Monitor: Country Perspectives 2018”, Annual Report, Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut, January 2019, see https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/
Documents/publications/research_reports/2018-2019/20190103_middle_east_nuclear_energy_monitor_country_perspectives_2018.
pdf, accessed 17 July 2021.
1050 - Omar Fahmy, Asma Alsharif and Luke Baker, “Egypt, Russia sign deal to build a nuclear power plant”, Reuters, 19 November 2015,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-russia-egypt-idUSKCN0T81YY20151119, accessed 17 July 2021.
1051 - Al-Masry Al-Youm, “Three Egyptian companies win tender for Dabaa nuclear plant”, Egypt Independent, 17 February 2020,see https://egyptindependent.com/three-egyptian-companies-win-tender-for-dabaa-nuclear-plant/, accessed 17 July 2021.
1052 - Reem Hosam El-din, “Dabaa nuclear plant, SCZone: ambitions, plans ahead”, Daily News Egypt, 12 December 2017,see https://dailynewsegypt.com/2017/12/12/dabaa-nuclear-plant-sczone-ambitions-plans-ahead/, accessed 13 December 2017.
1053 - NEI, “Work progressing at Egypt’s El Dabaa NPP”, 12 December 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsworkprogressing-at-egypts-el-dabaa-npp-6896457, accessed 25 July 2021.

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NPPA was granted a site permit for the reactors, the first step toward getting a construction
permit.1054
In December 2019, Australian energy group Worley Limited was awarded a consultant contract
to advise Egypt in the building process.1055 In February 2020, Atomstroyexport, a subsidiaryof Rosatom, announced that three Egyptian firms—Petrojet, Hassan Allam, and The
Arab Contractors—had won a tender for the first phase of work on the plant, expected to begin
in the summer of 2020 and continue through 2022.1056 Earlier in the month, Atomstroyexport
had held a training for Egyptian engineers at the Kursk-II plant under construction in Russia.1057
In 2018, the Egyptian Government projected that Dabaa Unit 1 would be commerciallyoperating as of 2026 and subsequent units in 2028.1058 This schedule was based on construction
start in 2020. However, the construction license application for Dabaa Unit 1 and Unit 2 wasonly submitted on 30 June 2021,1059 and is not expected to be granted before 2022.
On 14 July 2021, the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) was
reported by the Egyptian economic newspaper Enterprise as stating that Dabaa will not becompleted before 2030 due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite
this, Electricity and Renewable Minister Mohammed Shaker stated on 16 July 2021 that theplant is not facing any obstacles and will begin operation in 2026.1060 A four-year construction
schedule is highly unrealistic. The information about the postponement to 2030 was confirmed
on 28 July 2021.1061
Questions have been raised as to whether ENRRA, established in 2010, has the capacity andpolitical independence to effectively oversee the project. Additionally, while Egyptian officials
estimate that the project will bring the country US$246 billion in revenues over 60 years, someexperts have raised concerns that the project will lead to a substantial increase in Egypt’s
external debt.1062 The NGO Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights also criticized that “theprocess of public participation (…) was not satisfactorily done”.1063 As if to highlight the lackof transparency, the latest IAEA assessment of Egypt’s regulatory competence, the Integrated
1054 - NEI, “Egypt’s El-Dabaa NPP granted site permit”, 16 April 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsegypts-el-dabaanpp-granted-site-permit-7156405/, accessed 17 July 2021.
1055 - NEI, “Worley wins contract to advise Egypt on nuclear plant construction”, 31 December 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newsworley-wins-contract-to-advise-egypt-on-nuclear-plant-construction-7581139, accessed 17 July 2021.
1056 - Al-Masry Al-Youm, “Three Egyptian companies win tender for Dabaa nuclear plant”, Egypt Independent, op. cit.
1057 - GCR, “First contracts awarded for Egypt’s $25bn Dabaa nuclear power station”, Global Construction Review, 18 February 2020,see http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/first-contracts-awarded-egypts-25bn-dabaa-nuclear-/, accessed 17 July 2021.
1058 - NEI, “Active progress on Egypt’s El Dabaa”, 22 October 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsactive-progress-onegypts-el-dabaa-npp-6820883, accessed 17 July 2021.
1059 - Rosatom, “Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM global leader in nuclear technologies nuclear energy”,
Press Release, 1 July 2021, see https://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/nuclear-power-plants-authority-of-egypt-handed-over-thelicensing-documentation-for-el-dabaa-npp-con/, accessed 29 July 2021.
1060 - Mohammed Abu Zaid, “Egypt’s nuclear project on target, minister says”, Arab News, 16 July 2021,
see https://www.arabnews.com/node/1894936/business-economy, accessed 17 July 2021.
1061 - George Mikhail, “Because of the pandemic, the Dabaa nuclear plant will not end before”, Al Monitor, 28 July 2021,
see https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/07/egypt-postpones-nuclear-power-plant-amid-tensions-russia-over-nile-dam,
accessed 19 August 2021.
1062 - Warsaw Institute, “Russia Kicks Off Work On Egypt’s First Nuclear Power Plant”, 26 February 2020,see https://warsawinstitute.org/russia-kicks-off-work-egypts-first-nuclear-power-plant/, accessed 17 July 2021.
1063 - Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, “‘Without guarantees’ A study on nuclear energy and the Dabaa project”,
21 November 2019, see https://eipr.org/en/publications/without-guarantees-el-dabaa-nuclear-energy-project, accessed 17 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR), was completed and handed over to the government on
24 September 2020.1064 Unlike other country INIR’s, as of 1 July 2021, it has not been madepublic.
From the perspective of nuclear security, Egypt’s nuclear program poses several challenges.
Independent experts have remarked that in recent years, “the rate, impact and sophisticationof jihadi attacks in Egypt increased significantly and it is not unthinkable for Egypt’s nuclear
facilities to be targeted”.1065
In Egypt, the installed capacity of non-hydropower renewables (solar and wind) was around
2.7 GW, as of December 2019.1066 In 2016, the Egyptian Government had launched the “2035Integrated Sustainable Energy Strategy”, according to which it plans to generate 42 percent of
the electricity through renewable energy sources, namely solar PV, concentrated solar-thermal
power, wind energy and hydropower.1067 In the same strategy, the percentage allocated fornuclear energy is just 3 percent, raising questions about the real value for investing in nuclear
electricity that is only going to have such a small overall contribution to the national power
mix. In parallel, the Egyptian Government has launched a series of energy reforms such as afeed-in-tariff that incentivized private sector to get involved in the country’s electricity sector,
providing new financing pathways.1068
Egypt is also making strides in the development of a domestic and regional natural gas market.
Besides being host to Zohr, the largest gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean,1069 Egypt has
invested in gas import and export infrastructure to position itself as regional hub, and in theprocess, become self-sufficient. (See WNISR2020 – Middle East Focus). These developments
will have a great impact on Egypt’s electricity supply security as well as the future steps thecountry may take in shaping its energy policy. Despite the prioritization on renewables andnatural gas, the Egyptian Government remains committed to building four nuclear reactors at
the Dabaa site.
By 2035, Egypt’s Dabaa nuclear power plant is projected to contribute only 3 percent of thecountry’s electricity generation; a rather small share given the scale of planned investment(~US$60 billion).

1064 - IAEA, “IAEA Delivers INIR Mission Reports to Belarus and Egypt”, 24 September 2020, see https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-delivers-inir-mission-reports-to-belarus-and-egypt, accessed 17 July 2021.
1065 - Kareem Gerges and Ali Ahmad, “Egypt’s Nuclear Power Program: Security and Economic Risks”, Policy Brief #6/2018, Issam
Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut, October 2018, see https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/
Documents/publications/policy_briefs/2018-2019/20181018_egypt_nuclear_power_program.pdf, accessed 17 July 2021.
1066 - Mohamed Farag, “Egypt will produce 61,000MW of renewable energy, of which 12,000MW concentrated solar power”, Daily
News Egypt, as published on helioscsp.com, 28 December 2019, see http://helioscsp.com/egypt-will-produce-61000mw-of-renewableenergy-of-which- 12000mw-concentrated-solar-power/, accessed 17 July 2021.
1067 - NREA, “Renewable Energy Targets”, New and Renewable Energy Authority, Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, 2016,see http://nrea.gov.eg/test/en/About/Strategy, accessed 17 July 2021.
1068 - Oxford Business Group, “Egypt’s energy sector undergoes reforms to regulations, energy mix”, 19 March 2017,see https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/composition-makeover-sector-undergoing-reforms-regulations-and-energy-mix,
accessed 29 July 2021.
1069 - Ehab Farouk and Yousef Saba, “UPDATE 1-Egypt’s Zohr gas field output rises to 2.7 bln cubic feet per day - minister”, Reuters,
21 August 2019, see https://www.reuters.com/article/egypt-energy-idAFL5N25H1VW, accessed 17 July 2021.

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JordanJordan has been interested in acquiring nuclear power for over a decade. The Jordan Atomic
Energy Commission (JAEC), the country’s nuclear power authority, was established in 2008.1070
In 2015, Jordan signed a US$10-billion deal with Russia’s state-owned Rosatom to build two
1000-MW reactors in the kingdom.1071 The deal called for 51 percent of the plant to be owned
and financed by Jordan, with the remaining 49 percent by Rosatom.1072 Jordan aimed to havethe first unit be operational by 2021, and the second by 2025.1073 After three years, JAEC said
that the project had collapsed because Russia had required it to secure the necessary financial
resources for the project via commercial loans, which would have made the prices of electricity
generated uncompetitive.1074
Since then, JAEC’s focus turned to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs, see Chapter on SMRs) andit signed a series of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on SMRs. Over the past few years,
different SMR vendors have been reported as involved in discussions to construct their design.
SMR designs that seem to be under consideration are Xe-100,1075 SMART,1076 and China’s High
Temperature Reactor.1077 However, none of these appear to be progressing fast. One reason forthe delay might be that Jordan is reluctant to host a first-of-a-kind SMR design. In 2019, a JAEC
official told Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW) “We’re not going to be the test body” for SMR
developers and that Jordan will require any SMR design it builds to be licensed in its countryof origin “or by a reputable regulatory body”.1078 There are also more fundamental problems
with SMRs for a country like Jordan, including economics and the availability of access toappropriate quantities of cooling water.1079
In the early years after the JAEC was established, a key argument offered for pursuing nuclear
power was that the country’s growing energy demand cannot be met with renewable energy.1080
Ironically, during a local talk show in 2021, the head of JAEC, Dr. Khaled Toukan, admitted
that nuclear has no place in Jordan as the country has access to an abundant energy potential
1070 - JAEC, “Jordan Atomic Energy Commission”, 2021, see http://www.jaec.gov.jo/Pages/viewpage?pageID=1, accessed 1 May 2021.
1071 - AP, “Russia to build Jordan’s first nuclear power plant”, Al Jazeera, 24 March 2015, see https://www.aljazeera.com/
news/2015/3/24/russia-to-build-jordans-first-nuclear-power-plant, accessed 3 May 2021.
1072 - Mohammad Ghazal, “‘Nuclear commission preparing for two agreements with Russian reactor vendor’”, Jordan Times,
10 March 2014, see http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/nuclear-commission-preparing-two-agreements-russian-reactor-vendor,
accessed 8 May 2018.
1073 - WNN, “Jordan, Russia sign project development agreement”, 23 September 2014, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Jordan,-Russia-sign-project-development-agreement, accessed 22 May 2021.
1074 - Mohammad Ghazal, “Funding issues behind scrapping nuclear deal with Russia”, Jordan Times, 12 June 2018,see http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/funding-issues-behind-scrapping-nuclear-deal-russia-%E2%80%94-jaec,
accessed 5 July 2018.
1075 - Stephanie Cooke, “X-energy’s CEO Clay Sell On the HTGR”, NIW, 30 April 2021.
1076 - Phil Chaffee, “Smart SMR Cements Saudi-Korean Partnership”, NIW, 10 July 2020.
1077 - Mohammad Ghazal, “Jordan, China in ‘serious talks’ to build gas-cooled $1b reactor”, Jordan Times, 28 April 2018,see https://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-china-serious-talks%E2%80%99-build-gas-cooled-1b-reactor; also Ali Ahmad and
M. V. Ramana, “HTRs will not help establish nuclear power in Jordan”, Jordan Times, 10 May 2018, see http://www.jordantimes.com/
opinion/ali-ahmad-and-m-v-ramana/htrs-will-not-help-establish-nuclear-power-jordan, both accessed May 2018.
1078 - Phil Chaffee, “Jordan: NuScale a Finalist in SMR Competition”, NIW, 18 January 2019.
1079 - M.V Ramana and Ali Ahmad, “Wishful thinking and real problems: Small modular reactors, planning constraints, and nuclear
power in Jordan”, Energy Policy, June 2016.
1080 - See, for example, Suha Philip Ma’ayeh, “Jordan pushes forward with plan for first nuclear power station”, The National News,
11 July 2011, see https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/jordan-pushes-forward-with-plan-for-first-nuclear-powerstation-1.435825, accessed 30 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 from other sources.1081 Between 2014—when Jordan was at the closing stages of negotiating
an agreement with Russia for two nuclear reactors—and 2019, the share of renewables in theelectricity sector in Jordan grew 19-fold from 0.7 percent to 13 percent in 2019, making Jordan
one of the fastest growing markets in renewable energy in the region.1082 As of 2020, Jordan has
a total renewable energy generating capacity of 1.90 GW with solar energy comprising 1.36 GWof that.1083 According to the Updated Master Strategy of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources (MEMR) for the Energy Sector 2020–2030, the kingdom targets a 31 percent sharefor renewables in power generation capacity by 2030.1084

TurkeyIn Turkey, three separate projects have been in the planning stage for many years, with threedifferent reactor designs and three different financing schemes. However, as of mid-2021,
construction has only begun on the first of these projects, Akkuyu. Implementation of theother two, Sinop and İğneada, seems increasingly unlikely.

AkkuyuOver four decades after it was first proposed, construction of a nuclear power plant at
Akkuyu in the province of Mersin on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast started in April 2018.1085
The power plant is implemented by Rosatom of Russia under a Build-Own-Operate (BOO)
model. An agreement was signed in May 2010 for four VVER1200 reactors (Generation III+),
with construction originally expected to start in 2015. Only two months prior to the official
construction start in 2018, Rosatom’s Turkish partners, who were to hold 49 percent of theshares, quit.1086 However, Rosatom has stated that it would be able to complete the project even
if it is unable to attract local investors.1087
In April 2019, Rosatom reported talks with both state-run and private Turkish companies,
seeking to sell 49 percent of the project.1088 Reflecting the failure to secure a buyer for the stakein Akkuyu, on 18 December 2020, Russia’s Sovcombank announced that it will provide Rosatom
subsidiary Akkuyu Nuclear with a loan of US$300 million help financing the construction of1081 - Roya News, “”, 23 January 2021, Translated by Reem Salameh, University of British
Columbia, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oWolV_yBt8, accessed 1 February 2021.
1082 - IRENA, “Renewables Readiness Assessment: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”, February 2021,
see https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Feb/IRENA_RRA_Jordan_Summary_2021_
EN.pdf?la=en&hash=DE5015E14770A43E9BFF2DFF8FAE684CED6E8EEB, accessed 1 May 2021.
1083 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/
Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2021.pdf, accessed 5 May 2021.
1084 - IRENA, “Renewables Readiness Assessment: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”, 2021, op. cit.
1085 - Tuvan Gumrukeu and Orhan Coskun, “Turkey grants Rosatom construction license for first unit of Akkuyu nuclear plant”,

Reuters, 2 April 2018, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-russia-nuclearpower/turkey-grants-rosatom-construction-licensefor-first-unit-of-akkuyu-nuclear-plant-idUSKCN1H91OY, accessed 18 July 2021.
1086 - Orhan Coskun and Ali Kucukgocmen, “Two Turkish firms out of Russian nuclear plant consortium, other in talks: sources”,
Reuters, 6 February 2018, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-turkey-nuclear-companies-idUSKBN1FQ1OA, 25 July 2021.
1087 - Reuters, “Russia capable of building Akkuyu plant without partners: Minister”, as published in Hurriyet Daily News,
6 April 2018, see http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/russia-is-able-to-complete-akkuyu-nuclear-power-plant-construction-russianminister-129886, accessed 18 July 2021.
1088 - Ahval, “Russia’s Rosatom in talks to sell 49 pct stake in Akkuyu nuclear plant”, 15 April 2019, see https://ahvalnews.com/akkuyu/
russias-rosatom-talks-sell-49-pct-stake-akkuyu-nuclear-plant, accessed 18 April 2019.

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the plant.1089 The loan that is to cover a period of seven years came as it was confirmed by
Rosatom that attempts to sell a 49 percent stake in the project had not yet been successful.
Anton Dedusenko, deputy director general of Rusatom Energo International, was quoted by
Nuclear Engineering International (NEI) as stating that, “We do not set deadlines, the project issecured with funding, and we are ready to devote the necessary time to the search for partners
and the negotiation process, as needed…We will make decisions on the basis of economic
expediency, taking into account the requirements of a potential partner and its reliability. And
with the obligatory approval of the Turkish side.”1090 The loan agreements were signed between
Sovcombank and Akkuyu Nuclear JSC on 9 March 2021.1091
The financing of the project is supported by a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), which
includes 70 percent of the electricity produced from Units 1 and 2 and 30 percent of Units 3
and 4. Therefore 50 percent of the total power from the station is to be sold at a guaranteed
price for the first 15 years, with the rest to be sold on the market. Currency fluctuation andthe fall in the value of the Turkish lira make the price guarantees in dollars (US$123.50/MWh)problematic.1092
In October 2013, the Akkuyu project was announced to become operational by mid-2020, adelay of 18 months over the original schedule.1093 However, numerous delays have occurred(see previous editions of the WNISR), and by the time construction started in April 2018, firstelectricity was expected to be generated in 2023 (the 100th anniversary of the founding of themodern state of Turkey), with all four units to be operational by 2025.1094
In March 2019, the project management announced that it had finished the concreting of thebasemat for the nuclear island for the Unit 1 with physical completion now expected in 2023,
with power generation coming at a later date.1095
In September 2019, Rosatom announced that the license for Unit 2 had been granted in theprevious month, and that it was preparing to install the first steel equipment on Unit 1 in
the autumn.1096 Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, had announced in August 2019 that it would
provide a US$400 million loan to Rosatom for the plant’s construction.1097
1089 - Rosatom, “AKKUYU NUCLEAR JSC receives up to 300 mln USD loan from Sovcombank”, Press Release, 30 December 2020,see https://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/akkuyu-nuclear-jsc-receives-up-to-300-mln-usd-loan-from-sovcombank/,
accessed 18 July 2021.
1090 - NEI, “Russia’s Sovcombank provides loan for Turkey’s nuclear project”, 21 December 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newsrussias-sovcombank-provides-loan-turkey-nuclear-project-8421289, accessed 25 July 2021.
1091 - Rosatom, “Akkuyu Nuclear JSC will receive two sustainability linked loans from Sovcombank totaling $300 million”,
Press Release, 10 March 2021, see https://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/akkuyu-nuclear-jsc-will-receive-two-sustainability-linkedloans-from-sovcombank-totaling-300-million/, accessed 18 July 2021.
1092 - Phil Chaffee, “Newbuild: Revised 2023 Milestone for Akkuyu”, NIW, 29 March 2019.
1093 - Orhan Coskun and Humeyra Pamuk, “Turkey’s first nuclear plant facing further delays - sources”, Reuters, 7 February 2014,see https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-turkey-nuclear-delay/turkeys-first-nuclear-plant-facing-further-delays-sourcesidUKBREA160P220140207, accessed 18 July 2021.
1094 - NEI, “Construction of Turkey’s Akkuyu NPP begins”, 4 April 2018, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsconstructionof-turkeys-akkuyu-npp-begins-6102914/, accessed 22 April 2018.
1095 - Phil Chaffee, “Newbuild: Revised 2023 Milestone for Akkuyu”, NIW, op. cit.
1096 - Geert De Clercq, “Rosatom wins licence to build second nuclear reactor in Turkey -deputy CEO”, Reuters, 6 September 2019,see https://www.reuters.com/article/rosatom-nuclearpower-turkey-idUSL5N25X40O, accessed 18 July 2021.
1097 - David Dalton, “Russia’s Sberbank To Provide $400 Million Loan For Turkish Reactors”, NucNet, 21 August 2019,see https://www.nucnet.org/news/russia-s-sberbank-to-provide-usd400-million-loan-8-3-2019, accessed 18 July 2021.

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The cost escalation of the project for Turkey was highlighted in December 2020, when it wasreported that due to depreciation of the Turkish lira, the cost of the fifteen-year payback hadrisen from the projected 57 billion lira to 140 billion liras (US2020$19 billion).1098
In May 2019, it was reported that construction of Unit 1 had been “held up” due to the discovery
of cracks in the foundations, and after further cracks were discovered in the re-laid concrete,a larger section of the foundations had to be redone.1099 Installation of the Reactor Pressure
Vessel for Unit 1 was completed on 1 June 2021.1100 Akkuyu-1 is planned to be completed in
2023, and with operation no later than March 2025, which is the official target date in theintergovernmental agreement for the plant.1101
As for Akkuyu’s Unit 2, Turkish media sources in late June 2020 reported that construction has
started that same month.1102 Strangely, as of early July 2020, Rosatom had not communicatedabout the event. It is only in late July 2020 that the company confirmed and provided a date ofApril 2020 for first concrete pouring.1103
A construction license was granted for Akkuyu Unit 3 on 13 November 2020,1104 and firstconcrete was poured on 10 March 2021.1105
The safety and security risks from Akkuyu site were recently raised by the Greek government.
The first independent assessment of the 1200 MW VVER design was completed by theEuropean Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) in June 2018.1106 ENSREG concluded
that there were significant issues related to the design and safety systems. The assessment of
ENSREG contrasts with Rosatom claims that “They are absolutely safe in operation and fully
meet the IAEA’s post-Fukushima requirements.”1107
The Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, raised the perceived threat from Akkuyu in a phone
call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March 2021, stating that it would constitutea security threat to other states in close proximity to Turkey, given Ankara’s unwillingness

1098 - Mustafa Sonmez, “Critics say Turkey’s unfinished nuclear plant already redundant”, Al Monitor, 14 December 2020,see https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/12/turkey-nuclear-plant-become-redundant-before-completion.html#ixzz71I8KAnq9,
accessed 18 July 2021.
1099 - Ahval, “Cracks discovered during construction of Turkey’s first nuclear plant”, 6 May 2019,see https://ahvalnews.com/akkuyu/cracks-discovered-during-construction-turkeys-first-nuclear-plant, accessed 18 July 2021.
1100 - Akkuyu Nuclear, “The first reactor pressure vessel installed at Akkuyu NPP”, Rosatom, News Release, 1 June 2021,
see http://www.akkuyu.com/the-first-reactor-pressure-vessel-installed-at-akkuyu-npp/update, accessed 18 July 2021.
1101 - Caroline Peachey, “Concrete progress at Akkuyu”, NEI, 10 April 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureconcrete-progress-at-akkuyu-7148151/, accessed 18 July 2021.
1102 - Daily Sabah, “Construction starts on 2nd unit of Turkey’s 1st nuclear power plant Akkuyu”, 28 June 2020, see https://www.
dailysabah.com/business/energy/construction-starts-on-2nd-unit-of-turkeys-1st-nuclear-power-plant-akkuyu, accessed 18 July 2021.
1103 - Phil Chaffee, “Turkey: Rosatom Confirms Akkuyu-2’s April First Concrete Pour”, NIW, 24 July 2020.
1104 - Akkuyu Nuclear, “Akkuyu Nuclear JSC Obtains the Construction License of Akkuyu NPP Third Unit”, Rosatom, News Release,
23 November 2020, see http://www.akkuyu.com/akkuyu-nuclear-jsc-obtains-the-construction-license-of-akkuyu-npp-third-unit/
update, accessed 18 July 2021.
1105 - Akkuyu Nuclear, “Construction of Akkuyu NPP Unit 3 Begins”, Rosatom, News Release, 10 March 2021,
see http://www.akkuyu.com/construction-of-akkuyu-npp-unit-3-begins/update, accessed 18 July 2021.
1106 - ENSREG, “EU Peer Review Report of the Belarus Stress Tests”, June 2018, see http://www.ensreg.eu/sites/default/files/
attachments/hlg_p2018-36_155_belarus_stress_test_peer_review_report_0.pdf, accessed 18 July 2021.
1107 - Thomas Nielsen, “First emergency shutdown of reactor type to be built in Finland”, The Barents Observer, 25 November 2016,see https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/civil-society-and-media/2016/11/first-emergency-shutdown-reactor-type-be-built-finland,
accessed 18 July 2021.

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to share information on the plant, concluding that it could become a new “Chernobyl” in theeastern Mediterranean.1108
In March 2020, a group of Turkish NGOs filed a court case against the Ministry of Environment
and Urbanization to halt the construction work of the Akkuyu project because of the lack of avalid environmental impact assessment and generation license.1109 Specific concerns expressed
include the proximity of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant site to the active North Anatolian
Ecemiş seismic fault and that operation by Rosatom poses a national security threat.1110
The Akkuyu site lies 26 km from the Ecemiş fault line where the Eurasian and African tectonic
plates meet. “I’m not against nuclear power. I’m simply against ignorant nuclear planning” said
Tolga Yarman in 2011, a professor in the nuclear engineering department of Istanbul’s Okan
University, and one of the original nuclear engineers who signed off on the original Akkuyu
site license in 1976 when it was believed the fault was not active.1111 In 2019, deputy director
for the Akkuyu project, Mikhail Cherdantsev said that surveys carried out show that the
Edzhemis fault line passing through part of Gülnar district does not run in close vicinity to the
Akkuyu NPP site.1112 Cherdantsev also reiterated the claim that the plant had been designed towithstand an earthquake of up to 9 points magnitude.

Small Modular Reactors
In addition to the existing planned nuclear projects, Turkey is exploring the potential for SMRs.
In March 2020, the U.K.’s Rolls-Royce and Turkey’s state-owned EÜAS International ICC
signed an agreement to study the potential for SMRs from a technical, licensing, commercial
and investment perspective and the possibility of joint production in Turkey and globally.1113

1108 - Greek City Times, “Dendias says Turkey’s Russian-built Akkuyu nuclear power plant could be a new “Chernobyl””,
14 March 2021, see https://greekcitytimes.com/2021/03/14/dendias-akkuyu-chernobyl/, accessed 18 July 2021.
1109 - Ali Ekber ŞEN, “Akkuyu Nükleer Güç Santrali’ne durdurma davası”, Hayat, 11 March 2020 (in Turkish), see https://www.sozcu.
com.tr/hayatim/yasam-haberleri/akkuyu-nukleer-guc-santraline-durdurma-davasi/, accessed 18 July 2021.
1110 - Ibidem.
1111 - Julia Harte, “Building of Turkey’s First Nuclear Plant, Sited on a Fault Line, Facing Fresh Questions”, Reuters, 25 March 2011,see https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS122778134920110325, accessed 18 July 2021.
1112 - Caroline Peachey, “Concrete progress at Akkuyu”, NEI, op. cit.
1113 - WNN, “Turkish Utility to Cooperate with Rolls-Royce in SMRs”, 20 March 2020.

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Public Attitudes and Social Implications
The spread of an anti-nuclear sentiment within the Turkish public dates back to the 1970s
and is rooted in the country’s well-established environmental justice movements.1114 Fueled by
the fear of a repetition of disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima, social mobilization against
nuclear power plants has been taking place in big cities and near the selected nuclear sites,
protesting safety threats, legality of waste disposal, high costs and administrative shortcomings
among other issues.1115
Since it was licensed in 1976, the choice of the Akkuyu site has been criticized for its seismic
risks, which have received more attention in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.1116 Since then,various public surveys have been conducted to assess the public’s sentiment towards Turkey’s
nuclear power plans (see WNISR2020). According to a survey in 2018, two thirds of the Turkish
public do not support their country’s efforts to build nuclear power plants, stating that “it isclearly risky, nuclear power plants should never be built.”1117

Sinop
Sinop is on Turkey’s northern Black Sea coast and was planned to host a 4.4 GW power plant offour units of the ATMEA reactor-design. If completed, these would have been the first reactorsof this design, jointly developed by Japanese Mitsubishi and French AREVA (now Framatome,
again).1118 In April 2015, Turkish President Erdogan approved parliament’s ratification of theintergovernmental agreement with Japan.1119
However, after three and a half years of unsuccessful attempts to renegotiate the deal (seeprevious editions of the WNISR), in December 2018, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported
that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) was set to withdraw, finally ending the project.1120 On
19 January 2020, Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez finally confirmed that the time schedule andpricing of Sinop fell short of the ministry’s expectations. “We agreed with the Japanese side to
not continue our cooperation regarding this matter.”1121
While there is neither an apparent nuclear builder nor an officially selected design, theTurkish authorities have moved forward with an administrative Environmental Impact
1114 - Pinar Temocin, “Framing Opposition to Nuclear Power: The Case of Akkuyu in Southeast Turkey”, Institute for Peace andUnification Studies, Seoul National University, Asian Journal of Peacebuilding, November 2018.
1115 - Mustafa Kibaroglu, “Turkey’s Quest for Peaceful Nuclear Power”, The Nonproliferation Review, September 1997; andMustafa Balat, “Energy and Nuclear Power Planning Study for Turkey”, Energy Exploration & Exploitation, 1 February 2006.
1116 - Julia Harte, “Building of Turkey’s First Nuclear Plant, Sited on a Fault Line, Facing Fresh Questions”, Reuters, 25 March 2011,see https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS122778134920110325, accessed 18 July 2021.
1117 - Servet Yanatma, “Türkiye’de halkın üçte ikisi nükleer santrallere karş [Two-Thirds of the People in Turkey Are Against Nuclear
Power Plants; The Support Rate Among AKP Members is 50 Percent]”, euronews, 18 March 2019 (in Turkish), see https://tr.euronews.
com/2019/03/18/turkiye-halkin-ucte-ikisi-nukleer-santrallere-karsi-ak-partililerde-destek-orani-yuzde-50, accessed 18 July 2021.
1118 - WNN, “Turkish utility eyes large stake in Sinop project”, 12 May 2015, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Turkish-utilityeyes-large-stake-in-Sinop-project-12051501.html, accessed 18 July 2021.
1119 - WNN, “Ground broken for Turkey’s first nuclear power plant”, 15 April 2015, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NNGround-broken-for-Turkeys-first-nuclear-power-plant-1541501.html, accessed 18 July 2021.
1120 - Matsukubo Hijime, “Mitsubishi Heavy Industries withdraws from the NPP project in Sinop, Turkey ~NPP makers need to switch
to realistic track in the age of decommissioning~”, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, 30 January 2019, see http://www.cnic.jp/
english/?p=4271, accessed 18 July 2021.
1121 - NEI, “Turkey looks to cancel Japan Sinop project”, 27 January 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsturkey-looksto-cancel-japan-sinop-project-7653758/, accessed 18 July 2021.

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Assessment (EIA). The company that has submitted the EIA application on 30 March 2020 isAssystem ENVY Energy and Environmental Investment on behalf of EUAS International ICC
Sinop Nuclear Power Plant, Jersey Islands, Turkey Central Branch.1122 The EIA report strangely
mentions the Flamanville-3 EPR reactor in France, currently under construction, as “reference
reactor”, while the original EIA from 2018 was based on the AREVA-Mitsubishi ATMEA design,
which has never gone beyond the design phase anywhere. Neither of the French companies
EDF or subsidiary Framatome have communicated on the issue. On 15 September 2020, it wasreported that the Ministry of Environment had approved the EIA for Sinop.1123 However, theSinop Anti-Nuclear Platform (NKP) announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the EIA.

İğneada
In October 2015, the Turkish Government confirmed it was aiming to build a third nuclear
power plant at the İğneada site.1124 The most likely constructors would be Westinghouseand the Chinese State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) and a tripartite
agreement was already signed in November 2014.1125 Chinese companies have been said to be“aggressively” pursuing the contract, reportedly worth an estimated US$22–25 billion.1126 In
2016, China and Turkey ratified a nuclear co-operation agreement similar to the mechanism
used to develop the country’s other nuclear projects.1127
However, the financial collapse of Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2017,
likely contributed to the quiet abandoning of the project.1128

Saudi Arabia
Nuclear energy in Saudi Arabia is being developed by the King Abdullah City for Atomic
and Renewable Energy (KA-CARE), which was established by a Royal decree in 2010.1129 The
following year, the “coordinator of scientific collaboration at KA-CARE” announced plans “toconstruct 16 nuclear power reactors over the next 20 years at a cost of more than 300 billion
riyals ($80 billion)”.1130 In June 2011, a KA-CARE report suggested that “work on the kingdom’s

1122 - Ibidem.
1123 - BIA , “Ministry approves Environmental Impact Assessment report of Sinop Nuclear Plant”, bianet, 15 September 2020,see https://m.bianet.org/english/environment/230872-ministry-approves-environmental-impact-assessment-report-of-sinop-nuclearplant, accessed 18 July 2021.
1124 - David O’Byrne, “Turkey Confirms Site for Third Nuclear Plant”, European Power Daily, 15 October 2015.
1125 - WNN, “Tripartite agreement on third Turkish plant”, 24 November 2014, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NNTripartite-agreement-on-third-Turkish-plant-2411147.html, accessed 27 July 2021.
1126 - Lyu Chang, “Chinese Bidders Expected for Turkey’s Nuclear Project”, China Daily, 15 March 2016,see http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-03/15/content_23865840.htm, accessed 27 July 2021.
1127 - NEI, “China Eyes Turkey’s Third NPP”, 2 September 2016, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newschina-eyes-turkeysthird-npp-4996063, accessed 27 July 2021.
1128 - Phil Chaffee, “Turkey: Second and Third NPPs Face Headwinds”, NIW, 28 July 2017.
1129 - Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, “Royal Decree establishing King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy”, 2010,see https://www.climate-laws.org/geographies/saudi-arabia/policies/royal-decree-establishing-king-abdullah-city-for-atomic-andrenewable-energy-2010, accessed 11 June 2021.
1130 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Saudi Arabia”, World Nuclear Association, 2013, see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/CountryProfiles/Countries-O-S/Saudi-Arabia/.

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first nuclear reactor could start by 2014, for completion by 2020”.1131 As of June 2021, KA-CARE
has not started construction of even one nuclear power plant.
What Saudi Arabia has done has been to sign a series of agreements with other countries
and their nuclear agencies. Among these countries are Argentina,1132 France,1133 Russia,1134
China,1135 Hungary,1136 and South Korea.1137 Of these, the agreement between KA-CARE andthe Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is perhaps most distinctive, because
the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2015 involves an agreement to jointly
promote the SMART (System-integrated Modular Advanced Reactor) in international markets,
focusing on the Middle East.1138 SMART is a 330 MWth pressurized water reactor developedby KAERI designed for electricity generation as well as thermal applications such as seawater
desalination.
In 2017, KA-CARE announced that it was soliciting nuclear capacity proposals with a combined
capacity of roughly 2.8 GW from China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea.1139 It was also reported
that two sites on the coast near the UAE and Qatari borders had been shortlisted.1140 During
the same year, there were also reports that Westinghouse was discussing a group bid for two
nuclear power reactor tenders in Saudi Arabia.1141
In 2018, following a review of infrastructure development in Saudi Arabia, the IAEA announced
that the country “has established a legislative framework and carried out comprehensive
1131 - Emily Meredith, “Kuwait Shelves Nuclear Power Plans Amid Fukushima Rethink”, International Oil Daily, 5 October 2011.
1132 - WNN, “Saudi Arabia and Argentina form R&D joint venture”, 9 March 2015, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/SaudiArabia-and-Argentina-form-R-D-joint-venture, accessed 1 June 2021; Government of the Argentine Republic and Government of theKingdom of Saudi Arabia, “Cooperation Agreement Between the Government of the Argentine Republic and the Government of theKingdom of Saudi Arabia on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”, 28 June 2011, Registered with the Secretariat of the United National
6 November 2013, see https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/books/9789210453349s002-c006, accessed 14 July 2021.
1133 - KA-CARE, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Signs with the French Republic a Letter of Intent to Study the Feasibilityof Constructing Two Reactors”, 24 June 2015, see https://www.energy.gov.sa/en/mediacenter/news/Pages/news157.aspx,
accessed 14 July 2021.
1134 - WNN, “Russia, Saudi Arabia strengthen ties in nuclear energy”, 6 October 2017, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Russia,-Saudi-Arabia-strengthen-ties-in-nuclear-en, accessed 30 May 2021; and KA-CARE, “Saudi Arabia sign an idolater cooperationagreement in the areas of peaceful nuclear energy with the Federal Republic of Russia”, 18 June 2015, see https://www.energy.gov.sa/en/
mediacenter/news/Pages/news156.aspx, accessed 14 July 2021.
1135 - KA-CARE, “King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy Signs a Memorandum of Understandig with China National
Nuclear Cooperation”, 8 August 2014, see https://www.energy.gov.sa/en/mediacenter/news/Pages/news81.aspx, accessed 14 July 2021.
1136 - KA-CARE, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia concludes a cooperation agreement with Hungary on the peaceful uses of atomic
energy”, 19 October 2015, see https://www.energy.gov.sa/en/mediacenter/news/Pages/news177.aspx, accessed 14 July 2021.
1137 - KA-CARE, “MOU’s Signature”, 3 March 2015, see https://www.energy.gov.sa/en/mediacenter/news/Pages/news120.aspx,
accessed 14 July 2021; and WNN, “Saudi Arabia teams up with Korea on SMART”, 4 March 2015, see http://world-nuclear-news.org/
NN-Saudi-Arabia-teams-up-with-Korea-on-SMART-0403154.html, accessed 30 May 2021; and WNN, “Saudi Arabia and Korea further
SMART cooperation”, 3 September 2015, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Saudi-Arabia-and-Korea-further-SMARTcooperation, accessed 28 May 2021.
1138 - WNN, “Korea, Saudi Arabia to cooperate on SMART deployment”, 20 September 2019, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Korea,-Saudi-Arabia-to-cooperate-on-SMART-deployme, accessed 3 June 2021; and WNN, “Korea, Saudi Arabia progress with
SMART collaboration”, 7 January 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Korea-Saudi-Arabia-progress-with-SMARTcollaborati, accessed 4 July 2020; also KAERI, “KAERI and K.A.CARE signed SMART PPE Agreement”, 3 September 2015,see https://www.kaeri.re.kr/board/view?pageNum=6&rowCnt=10&no1=143&linkId=4865&menuId=MENU00718, accessed 9 July 2021.
1139 - Stephanie Cooke and Phil Chaffee, “Reactor Vendors Poised to Bid on Saudi RFI”, NIW, 15 December 2017.
1140 - Andrew Roscoe, “Saudi Arabia shortlists two sites for first nuclear power project”, MEED, 22 January 2018,see https://www.meed.com/exclusive-saudi-arabia-shortlists-two-sites-first-nuclear-power-project, accessed 11 June 2021.
1141 - Reem Shamseddine, Stephen Kalin and Geert De Clercq, “Exclusive: Westinghouse discussing group bid for Saudi nuclear
tender - sources”, Reuters, 21 November 2017, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-nuclear-usa-exclusive-idUSKBN1DL1BF,
accessed 7 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 studies to support the next steps of the program”.1142 KA-CARE has also entered into a contract
with the French company Assystem to conduct site characterization and impact studies for the
first nuclear power plant.1143
While Saudi nuclear plans have been gradually going through different stages of planning,
installed renewable energy capacity in Saudi Arabia has dramatically expanded, from a mere
3 MW in 2011 to 413 MW in 2020, of which 409 MW is solar capacity.1144 Perhaps due to thepandemic, the capacity did not expand in 2020. Saudi Arabia has announced ambitious plans to
expand renewable energy so that it constitutes 50 percent of its energy by 2030,1145 and becomea leader in hydrogen production.1146
In April 2021, two consortiums led by Saudi developer Acwa Power established a new world
record for the lowest price for solar power by signing Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs)
at US$¢1.04/Wh (US$10.4/MWh) and US$¢1.239/kWh (US$12.39/MWh) for two projects withrespectively 600 MW and 1.6 GW.1147

CONTINENTAL EUROPE
PolandPoland planned the development of a series of nuclear power stations in the 1980s andstarted construction of two VVER1000/320 reactors in Żarnowiec on the Baltic coast, butboth construction and further plans were halted following the Chernobyl accident. Since
then, there has been a long, expensive and time-consuming series of attempts to restart thenuclear program. In 2008, Poland announced that it was going to re-enter the nuclear arenaand in November 2010, the Ministry of Economy put forward a Nuclear Energy Program. On
28 January 2014, the Polish Government adopted a document with the title “Polish Nuclear
Power Programme” outlining the framework of the strategy. The plan included proposals
to build 6 GW of nuclear power capacity with the first reactor starting up by 2024. The
reactor types then under consideration included AREVA’s EPR, Westinghouse’s AP1000, andHitachi‑GE’s ABWR. Since then, AREVA went bankrupt and was broken up, while Westinghouse
filed for bankruptcy protection and was sold to a Canadian holding, and Hitachi-GE has nevercompleted an ABWR.

1142 - WNN, “IAEA reports on Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure”, 28 January 2019, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
IAEA-reports-on-Saudi-Arabia-s-nuclear-infrastruct, accessed 3 June 2021.
1143 - WNN, “Assystem to assess potential Saudi sites”, 4 July 2018, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Assystem-to-assesspotential-Saudi-sites, accessed 1 June 2021.
1144 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/March/RenewableCapacity-Statistics-2021, accessed 6 June 2021.
1145 - Joe Lo, “Saudi Arabia aims for 50% renewable energy by 2030, backs huge tree planting initiative”, Climate Home News,
31 March 2021, see https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/03/31/saudi-arabia-aims-50-renewable-energy-2030-backs-huge-treeplanting-initiative/, accessed 5 June 2021.
1146 - Matthew Martin, Salma El Wardany and Abeer Abu Omar, “Saudi Arabia Aims to Become Next Germany of Renewable Energy”,
Bloomberg, 27 January 2021, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/saudi-arabia-aims-to-become-the-germany-ofrenewable-energy, accessed 5 June 2021.
1147 - Energy & Utilities, “Saudi Arabia achieves two new world record solar tariffs”, 9 April 2021, see https://energy-utilities.com/saudiarabia-achieves-two-new-world-record-solar-news111675.html, accessed 26 April 2021.

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In January 2013, the Polish state-owned utility PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna) selected
WorleyParsons to conduct a five-year, US$81.5 million study, on the siting and development of
a nuclear power plant with a capacity of up to 3 GW. At that time, the project was estimatedat US$13–19 billion and construction was to begin in 2019. In January 2014, PGE received fourbids from companies looking to become the company’s “Owner’s Engineer” to help in thetendering and development of the project, which was eventually awarded to AMEC Nuclear
U.K. in July 2014. The timetable demanded that PGE make a final investment decision on thetwo plants by early 2017.1148 That did not happen.
In November 2018, the Government published a draft strategic energy development program,which called for the construction of four reactors (providing 6–10 GW of capacity) by 2040,
with the first in operation by 20331149 —a decade later than a plan published just five years
earlier—with up to six units with a combined capacity of 6-9 GWe to be put into operation by
2043.1150 The Ministry of Energy envisaged the site selection for the first plant in 2020, while
the technology would be chosen in 2021.1151
In October 2020, the Council of Ministers adopted the government’s long-term Polish Nuclear
Power Program. Its main objective is to build and commission nuclear power plants in
Poland with a total installed capacity of approximately 6—9 GWe based on Generation III (+)
pressurized water reactors, with operation during the 2030s, while the share of nuclear powerin the energy mix of 2045 is predicted to be about 20 percent. According to the documentation,
the timetable is as follows:ɆɆ 2021 – choice of technology;
ɆɆ 2022 – environmental and location decision;ɆɆ 2026 – a building permit is obtained and construction commenced;
ɆɆ 2033–2037 – an operating permit is issued by the President of the National Atomic Energy
Agency and three nuclear power plant units are commissioned (EJ1).1152
The timetable seems unrealistic, with little chance that a technology can be chosen in 2021 nora decision on siting in 2022. The cost of the investment is expected to be US$40 billion.1153 The
Government is said to be aware that it will need to give financial support for the construction
and therefore it will seek State Aid approval from the European Commissions.

1148 - David Dalton, “Amec Wins USD 430 Million Contract To Support Polish New-Build”, Nucnet, 9 July 2014,see https://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2014/07/21/amec-wins-usd-430-million-contract-to-support-polish-new-build,accessed 1 May 2021.
1149 - Gary Peach, “Newbuild: Power Demand in Poland Bolsters Case for Nuclear”, NIW, 26 November 2018.
1150 - WNN, “Poland sets financing target for nuclear plant”, 19 November 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Poland-sets-financing-target-for-nuclear-plant, accessed 1 May 2021.
1151 - WNN, “Poland already preparing for nuclear plant, says energy minister”, 16 May 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Poland-already-preparing-for-nuclear-plant,-says-e, accessed 1 May 2021.
1152 - CMS Law-Now, “The 2020 Polish Nuclear Power Programme – main objectives”, 26 October 2020,see https://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2020/10/the-2020-polish-nuclear-power-programme-main-objectives, accessed 1 May 2021.
1153 - Nuclear Energy Insider, “Poland pledges $40 billion for new nuclear – CNL, Kairos to jointly develop SMR”, Reuters,
15 September 2021, see https://www.reutersevents.com/nuclear/poland-pledges-40-billion-new-nuclear-cnl-kairos-jointly-develop-smr,
accessed 1 May 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Nuclear vendors are keen to be under consideration, with Westinghouse rapidly promoting theAP10001154 , while the Government has also made overtures to Japan1155 and France.1156

AFRICAIn continental Africa, only South Africa has an operating nuclear power plant (see Annex 1 –South Africa). This is despite sporadic support from national governments and encouragementfrom international vendors, now particularly China and Russia.
Across the continent, electricity generation increased from 672 TWh in 2010 to 870 TWh in
2019, with natural gas and coal (the latter largely in South Africa) accounting for 40 percent
and 30 percent respectively, hydropower representing a further 16 percent, oil 9 percent, nonhydro renewables (solar, wind etc.) 3 percent and nuclear less than 2 percent. Africa does
however have a significant role for the global nuclear industry with Namibia and Niger theworld’s fourth- and fifth-largest uranium producers.
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), China has agreements with—but noplants under construction—in Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, while Russia signed agreementswith Algeria, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Rwanda and Zambia.1157
In September 2020, Russia signed an MoU for cooperation with the African Commission
on Nuclear Energy (AFCONE), to establish a basis for Russia to help African countries withvarious projects related to nuclear energy.1158 The vast majority of these are little more thanpolitical statements of support designed to increase diplomatic links with key infrastructure
providers and recipients.
However, over the past year some developments have occurred. Of significance is Rwanda thatin October 2019 signed an agreement with Rosatom to build a nuclear science center, with
the intention of developing an interest in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).1159 In Nigeria, inNovember 2019, the Senate called on the Government to consider including nuclear powerin the power mix to give a mandate to the Atomic Energy Commission to negotiate withinternational nuclear vendors. Nigeria has previously sought the support of the IAEA todevelop plans for up to 4 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2025, which are obviously not achievable,
at least in the originally envisaged timeframe.1160

1154 - NEI, “Westinghouse seeks participation in Poland’s nuclear programme”, 18 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newswestinghouse-seeks-participation-in-polands-nuclear-programme-8609350, accessed 1 May 2021.
1155 - Daishi Chiba, “Poland minister seeks Japanese partners for nuclear project”, Nikkei Asia, 3 December 2021, see https://asia.nikkei.
com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Poland-minister-seeks-Japanese-partners-for-nuclear-project, accessed 1 May 2021.
1156 - Wojciech Jakóbik, “France in the game for a nuclear contract in Poland. The final decision is close”, BiznesAlert, 3 February 2021,
see https://biznesalert.com/france-in-the-game-for-a-nuclear-contract-in-poland-the-final-decision-is-close/, accessed 4 May 2021.
1157 - WNA, “Emerging Nuclear Energy Countries”, March 2021, see https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/
others/emerging-nuclear-energy-countries.aspx, accessed 1 May 2021.
1158 - NEI, “Russia to co-operate with Afcone”, 29 September 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussia-to-cooperate-with-afcone-8153681/, accessed 1 May 2021.
1159 - Katya Golubkova and Alexander Winning, “Russia’s Rosatom, Rwanda sign deal to build nuclear science center”, Reuters,
24 October 2019, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rwanda-nuclear-idUSKBN1X32DV, accessed 1 May 2021.
1160 - WNN, “Nigerian Senate calls for inclusion of nuclear in energy mix”, 21 November 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.
org/Articles/Senate-calls-for-nuclear-inclusion-in-Nigeria-s-en, accessed 1 May 2021.

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SMALL MODULAR REACTORSAs nuclear energy continues to face major economic challenges, the nuclear industry andgovernments that are supportive of nuclear power continue to push new reactor designs as thesolution to the industry’s woes. These designs are dubbed with multiple labels, such as Advanced
Reactors, Generation IV reactors, or, most prominently, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).1161
The evidence so far suggests that the smaller reactor projects may suffer from many similar
challenges as large nuclear reactors and maybe from some new ones. What follows is an updateof earlier analysis (in particular WNISR2015, WNISR2017, WNISR2019 and WNISR2020) on
SMR programs in selected countries (in alphabetical order).

ARGENTINAThe National Atomic Energy Commission of Argentina (CNEA) has been constructing the
CAREM-25 reactor since February 2014,1162 after nearly 30 years of design development.1163 The
project’s completion date has been continuously pushed back. A presentation by a CNEA official
in September 2020 estimated progress at 58 percent.1164 The summary of a webinar conducted
in November 2020 quoted the CNEA President as saying that the “physical completion of
Carem 25 is at 70%”.1165 It was also reported that successive Argentinian administrations have“already invested more than USD$400 million” on the project. However, the overall cost of the
project was reported as US$700 million in 2017.1166 There is no update about when the reactor
might become operational.

CANADA
Canada has become a preferred destination for several SMR vendors, thanks to government
support for the technology. Both the federal government and several provincial governments
have been advocating for SMRs. In 2018, the federal government funded the Canadian Nuclear
Association, “a non-profit organization established in 1960 to represent the nuclear industry
in Canada and promote the development and growth of nuclear technologies for peacefulpurposes”, to produce a “roadmap which will identify the opportunities for on and off-grid

1161 - The acronym SMR is also used to mean “small and medium-sized reactor” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
For the IAEA, a ‘‘small’’ reactor is one having electrical output less than 300 MWe and a ‘‘medium’’ reactor is one having a power
output between 300 MWe and 700 MWe.
1162 - WNN, “Construction of CAREM underway”, 10 February 2014, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Construction-ofCAREM-underway-1002144.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1163 - Silvia Lucila Molina, Natalia Sofía Tucci Branco and María Noelia Dusau, “CAREM Reactor: An Innovative and Achievable
Option for Enhancing Nuclear Energy Supply”, presented at the INTER JURA 2018, International Nuclear Law Association,
4 November 2018, see https://emirates.meeting-app.events/inla2018/congress-papers, accessed 29 June 2019.
1164 - Osvaldo Calzetta, “CAREM Project, the Argentinian Small Modular Reactor”, Latin American Section, American Nuclear
Society, Nuclear Energy Atomic Commission of Argentina, 17 September 2020, see https://las-ans.org.br/carem-project-theargentinian-small-modular-reactor-currently-in-development/, accessed 21 June 2021.
1165 - Ibrahim Ababou, “CAREM 25 Prototype reaching 70% completion”, Nuclear Business Platform, as published on LinkedIn, 2020,see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/carem-25-prototype-reaching-70-completion-ibrahim-ababou/, accessed 21 June 2021.
1166 - Bnamericas, “Argentine nuclear reactor due to start up in 2020”, 17 April 2017, see https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/
argentine-nuclear-reactor-due-to-start-up-in-2020, accessed 21 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 applications of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Canada”.1167 In December 2020, Ministerof Natural Resources, Seamus O’Regan, released an action plan for SMRs, which listed sevenprinciples starting with the intention to act “together and within our jurisdictions and areas ofauthority to support the development and deployment of various SMR technologies in Canada,with first units in operation by the late 2020s”.1168
The announcement was sandwiched between decisions to invest relative large amounts ofmoney into companies seeking to develop SMRs. The Ontario based Terrestrial Energy received
CAD20 million (around US$16 million) in October 2020.1169 A few months after the action plan
was released, in March 2021, the Federal Government provided over CAD50 million (around
US$40 million) to Moltex to subsidize development of its reactor design.1170 Both Terrestrial
Energy and Moltex are pursuing molten salt reactor designs, and questions have been raised
about their viability.1171 In between these two announcements, the province of New Brunswick
awarded CAD20 million (around US$16 million) in February 2021 to ARC-100, a sodium cooled
fast reactor design.1172
Two of the electricity supplying companies have also been supportive of SMRs. This ismost pronounced in Ontario, the province with the vast majority of nuclear power plants in
Canada. In October 2020, Ontario Power Generation announced agreements with GE Hitachi,
Terrestrial Energy and X-energy to help deploy SMRs.1173 Ontario Power Generation (OPG)
holds a site preparation license for the Darlington site and in 2021 it applied to renew thislicense.1174 Besides Ontario, the only other province in Canada with nuclear power plants is
New Brunswick, and the province’s electricity utility, NB Power, is working with two SMR
vendors, Moltex and ARC-100, to “advance their technologies for use in New Brunswick”.1175 At
the same time, the ten year plan adopted by NB-Power in 2019 for the period 2021–2030 andthe strategic plan for 2011–2040 see no new nuclear power from SMRs coming online; the 2020

1167 - NRCAN, “Canadian Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Roadmap”, Natural Resources Canada, 2 May 2018,see https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/funding-partnerships/funding-opportunities/current-investments/canadian-smallmodular-reactor-smr-roadmap/21084; and CNA, “About – Members”, Canadian Nuclear Association, 2020, see https://cna.ca/aboutcna/members/, both accessed 13 October 2020.
1168 - NRCAN, “Statement of Principles”, SMR Action Plan, 18 December 2020, see https://smractionplan.ca/content/statementprinciples, accessed 22 June 2021.
1169 - Terrestrial Energy, “Terrestrial Energy Receives Canadian Government Funding for IMSR Generation IV Nuclear Plant”,
15 October 2020, see http://www.terrestrialenergy.com/2020/10/terrestrial-energy-receives-canadian-government-funding-for-imsrgeneration-iv-nuclear-plant/, accessed 22 June 2021.
1170 - Jacques Poitras, “Feds to put millions into small nuclear reactor development in N.B.”, CBC News, 18 March 2021,
see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/feds-millions-small-nuclear-reactors-1.5955274, accessed 19 March 2021.
1171 - Jacques Poitras, “Former U.S. regulator questions small nuclear reactor technology”, CBC News, 15 January 2021,
see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nuclear-waste-reactors-new-brunswick-allison-macfarlane-moltex-arc-1.5873542,
accessed 15 January 2021.
1172 - Jacques Poitras, “Nuclear energy company gets $20M boost from province, Higgs says”, CBC News, 15 January 2021,
see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-new-brunswick-1.5908995,
accessed 22 June 2021.
1173 - WNN, “OPG advances towards SMR deployment”, 6 October 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/OPGadvances-towards-SMR-deployment, accessed 22 June 2021.
1174 - David Dalton, “OPG Applies For Renewal Of Darlington Nuclear Site Licence”, NucNet, 22 March 2021,
see https://www.nucnet.org/news/opg-applies-for-renewal-of-darlington-nuclear-site-licence-3-1-2021, accessed 22 June 2021.
1175 - Alex Woodworth, “An Update on Advanced Small Modular Reactor (SMR) in New Brunswick”, INSiGHT Magazine, Fredericton
Chamber of Commerce, 25 April 2021, see https://www.frederictonchamber.ca/insight/2021/04/25/an-update-on-advanced-smallmodular-reactor-smr-in-new-brunswick/, accessed 22 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Integrated Resource Plan did not include SMRs because “cost estimates remain uncertain at
this time”.1176
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has been offering the “pre-licensing vendor
design review”, an optional service for SMR vendors, as a way to signal its readiness to license
SMRs. However, CNSC does make it clear that such a review is “not an application for a licenceto prepare a site or to construct or operate a nuclear power facility” and that the “review does
not certify a reactor design or involve the issuance of a licence” and that the “conclusions ofany design review do not bind or otherwise influence decisions made by the Commission”.1177
Over the past year, the Moltex SSR-W300 design completed the Phase 1 review process andthe May 2021 report from CNSC identified a number of areas where Moltex is still lacking
and several potential problems about the safety, including about quality assurance programs,
Moltex’s proposal of not having a secondary control room, and the reliability of shutdown
systems.1178 In August 2020, Holtec International SMR-160 design also completed the Phase 1
review process, and CNSC highlighted the need to confirm the adequacy of Holtec’s fuelqualification program and the means to shut down the reactor under all conditions.1179

CHINA
The High Temperature Reactors (HTR-PM) under construction at Shidaowan (Shidao Bay) in
the eastern Shandong province continue to be delayed. Construction of the HTR-PM, which
consists of two 100-MW modules driving one 200 MW turbine, commenced in December 2012.
At that time, the Huaneng Shandong Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Company Ltd. (HSNPC), thebuilder and operator of the units, announced that the plant will “start generating commercial
electricity by the end of 2017”.1180 Since then, the start date has been continuously pushed back(see earlier WNISR editions for details). According to a June 2020 presentation, “criticality andpower operation” were scheduled for later in the year.1181 But even the cold functional test wascompleted only in November 2020.1182 Hot functional tests started in January 2021, and thefirst fuel was shipped to the site in the same month.1183
1176 - NB Power, “Strategic Plans”, 2021, see https://www.nbpower.com/en/about-us/accountability-reports/strategic-plans,
accessed 22 June 2021.
1177 - CNSC, “Pre-Licensing Vendor Design Review”, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, 25 May 2021,
see https://cnsc.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/index.cfm, accessed 21 June 2021.
1178 - CNSC, “Phase 1 pre-licensing vendor design review executive summary: Moltex Energy”, 25 May 2021,
see https://cnsc.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/moltex-energy-executive-summary.cfm,
accessed 21 June 2021.
1179 - CNSC, “Phase 1 Pre-Licensing Vendor Design Review Executive Summary: SMR, LLC.”, 20 August 2020,see https://cnsc.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/holtec-international-executive-summary.cfm,
accessed 21 June 2021.
1180 - David Dalton, “China Begins Construction Of First Generation IV HTR-PM Unit”, NucNet, 7 January 2013,see http://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2013/01/07/china-begins-construction-of-first-generation-iv-htr-pm-unit,
accessed 10 January 2013.
1181 - Fu Li, “Chinese HTR Program”, and INET, Tsinghua University, Presented at the IFNEC SMR Webinar Series, 23 June 2020,see https://www.ifnec.org/ifnec/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-06/slides_deck_-_webinar_4.pdf, accessed 6 July 2020.
1182 - C.F. Yu, “CNNC Rolls Out Additional HTGR Plans”, NIW, 13 November 2020.
1183 - WNN, “Hot functional testing of HTR-PM reactors starts”, 4 January 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Hot-functional-testing-of-HTR-PM-reactors-starts, accessed 4 January 2021; and NEI, “First fuel shipped to China’s HTR-PM
project”, 13 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfirst-fuel-shipped-to-chinas-htr-pm-project-8453226,
accessed 23 June 2021.

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There appear to be no plans to construct more reactors of the same design. However,in November 2020, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) released “four tender
documents soliciting technology partners for conducting marine environmental, seismic,
geology, and safety assessments at a completely new nuclear site: Xin’an, a town within
Haiyang City in Shandong province” and according to “the tender documents CNNC plans
to first construct two 600-MW HTGRs at the newly unveiled site”.1184 The larger power level
suggests that CNNC is scaling up the reactor to gain from economies of scale; at 600 MW,
these new reactor designs would no longer fit the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
definition of a small reactor as being below 300 MW capacity.
The other SMR design that seems to be seriously under consideration is CNNC’s ACP100. In
July 2019, it was reported that CNNC is starting to “build an ACP100 small modular reactor
at Changjiang in Hainan, an island province in the south of the country” and the formal
construction was to “begin by the end” of 2019.1185 While no construction start has beenreported, in April 2021, the government approved the project.1186 However, in May 2021, theMinistry of Ecology and Environment published a letter on its website that summarizes thenuclear safety inspection report and called upon the owner to take effective measures toimplement the safety management requirements put forward in the inspection report.1187 Evenprior to the start of construction, CNNC admitted that the construction cost per kilowatt of
the proposed ACP100 demonstration project “is 2 times higher than that of a large NPP [nuclear
power plant]”.1188 There are a number of other SMR designs at various stages of development
but none of them are reportedly slated for construction anytime soon.1189

INDIA
India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has been developing the Advanced Heavy Water
Reactor (AHWR) design since the 1990s with plans to have one operating by 2011.1190 It has
since been delayed continuously. Earlier this year, the Indian government announced that it
had already “accorded in-principle approval” all the way back in 2016 for building the AHWR at
the Tarapur site (which already hosts four operating reactors and a reprocessing plant).1191 But
in the intervening five years, no actual plans for construction seem to have matured. In a 20191184 - C.F. Yu, “CNNC Rolls Out Additional HTGR Plans”, NIW, 2020, op. cit.
1185 - David Dalton, “CNNC Announces Plans For ‘Linglong One’ SMR”, NucNet, 23 July 2019, see https://www.nucnet.org/news/cnncannounces-plans-for-linglong-one-smr-7-2-2019, accessed 26 June 2020.
1186 - Reuters, “China gives green light to nuclear units to cut carbon, sources say”, as published by South China Morning Post,
15 April 2021, see https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3129691/china-gives-green-light-five-nuclear-units-cut-carbonand-aim, accessed 15 May 2021.
1187 - National Nuclear Safety Administration, “关于印发《海南昌江多用途模块式小型堆科技示范工程核岛基础浇筑第一罐混凝土前
准备情况核安全检查报告》的函”, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, 8 May 2021,
see http://www.mee.gov.cn/xxgk2018/xxgk/xxgk07/202105/t20210508_832105.html, accessed 24 June 2021.
1188 - Danrong Song, “Opportunities and Challenges in SMR and Its Practice in ACP100”, CNNC, Presented at the 17th INPRO
Dialogue Forum on Opportunities and Challenges in Small Modular Reactors, 2 July 2019, see https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/INPRO/
df17/IV.1.-DanrongSong-ACP100.pdf, accessed 4 July 2020.
1189 - C. F. Yu, “Chinese SMR Program Faces Slowdown and Secrecy”, NIW, 24 July 2020.
1190 - V. K Chaturvedi, “CMD’s page”, Nu-Power, 2000.
1191 - Rajya Sabha, “Unstarred question No. 3368: Uranium and Thorium reserves in the country”, Department of Atomic Energy,
Answered 25 March 2021, by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office,
Government of India, see https://dae.gov.in/writereaddata/rs%20usq%203368.pdf, accessed 23 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 presentation at an IAEA meeting on SMRs, the AHWR was entitled an “R&D programme” butnot mentioned in the list of reactors “under construction and planned”.1192 The terminology
and the absence of any announcements about construction suggest that the AHWR is unlikely
to get underway anytime soon.

RUSSIA
Russia’s interest in SMRs has largely been on fast reactor designs, although it is also developing
light water reactor (LWR) based SMR designs, notably for the far eastern part of Russia.
Such an LWR-based SMR design, the KLT-40S, intended for deployment on a barge as a floating
nuclear power plant, is the only one that has so far been deployed in Russia. Two such reactors,
deployed on a barge called the Akademik Lomonosov, were commissioned in May 2020 after
lengthy delays and cost overruns (see WNISR2020 and earlier WNISR editions). The Akademik
Lomonosov’s performance after it was commissioned has been poor; the 2020 load factors forthe two reactors were just 29 and 16 percent according to the IAEA’s PRIS database.
Russia’s state-owned Rosatom is now promoting the RITM series of reactors, and, inNovember 2020, announced plans to build a land-based (RITM-200N) in the village of UstKuyga, in Yakutia, again in the far eastern part of Russia.1193 If constructed, it could be Russia’s
first land based SMR. According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), start of constructionis planned for 2024.1194 In June 2020, the Marketing Director for Rosatom projected that the
RITM-200N will be commissioned in 2027.1195
The RITM-200 and the KLT-40S are part of a larger Russian strategy to develop the Arctic andeastern Siberia to obtain minerals and hydrocarbons.1196 In October 2020, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed an executive order entitled “On the Strategy for Developing the Russian
Arctic Zone and Ensuring National Security until 2035” that calls for “the construction ofat least five new nuclear-powered icebreakers of the Project 22220 series, and three of the
Project 10510 series” that are “needed to ensure year-round navigation along the Northern Sea
Route”.1197
But the main focus of Russian SMR efforts are fast neutron designs. In June 2021, Rosatom
announced it had commenced constructing of the first lead-cooled BREST-300 fast reactor

1192 - Alok Chaurey and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, “R&D Programme in BARC on AHWR-300 Design & Technology
Development and Innovative Reactors”, Presented at the Second Meeting of the Technical Working Group for Small and Medium-sizedor Modular Reactor, 9 July 2019, see https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/htgr-kb/twg-smr/SitePages/2019.aspx, accessed 25 June 2020.
1193 - WNN, “Rosatom plans first land-based SMR for Russian Far East”, 11 November 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Rosatom-plans-first-land-based-SMR-for-Russian-Far, accessed 27 June 2021.
1194 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Russia”, Updated April 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/
countries-o-s/russia-nuclear-power.aspx, accessed 10 May 2021.
1195 - Elena Pashina, “Rosatom RITM series SMRs”, Rusatom Overseas, Presented at the IFNEC SMR Webinar Series “SMR Vendor
Forum – An Open Discussion with Global Vendors to Review Designs and Benefits”, 23 June 2020, see https://www.ifnec.org/ifnec/
upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-06/slides_deck_-_webinar_4.pdf, accessed 6 July 2020.
1196 - Gary Peach, “Frontier Expansion via Floating NPPs”, NIW, 4 June 2021.
1197 - WNN, “Putin decrees development of Arctic with more nuclear icebreakers”, 30 October 2020, see https://www.world-nuclearnews.org/Articles/Putin-decrees-development-of-Arctic-with-more-nucl, accessed 27 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 at the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) in Seversk.1198 This follows an announcement fromMay 2020 about preparatory work at that site, and a December 2019 announcement about a
RUB26.3 billion (USD412 million) contract for construction being awarded.1199 According
to Yevgeny Adamov, former minister of atomic energy and a champion of lead-cooled fast
reactors, BREST-300 should cost RUB100 billion (USD1.4 billion).1200
The BREST design is significantly delayed. The “Federal Program for Advanced Nuclear
Technologies” adopted by Russia in January 2012 had called for building three commercial fastneutron reactors by 2020, including the BREST-300, as well as the lead-bismuth cooled SVBR100, and the sodium-cooled BN-1200.1201 The federal budget for 2013 allocated RUB25.7 billion
for “the design and construction of the pilot demonstrative fast-neutron lead cooled reactor
BREST”.1202 By the following year, the Technical Lead of the IAEA’s SMR Technology
Development division projected that the BREST-300 and SVBR-100 would be deployed by
2018.1203 The BREST-300 reactor is now projected to enter operation in 2026.1204
In the meanwhile, Russian analysts suggest that the SVBR-100 reactor design has been“effectively discontinued”.1205 The WNA also maintains that the SVBR-100 has “beencancelled”.1206

SOUTH KOREA
South Korea’s main SMR design, the System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART),
a 100-MW Pressurized Water Reactor, was one of the first to be licensed, having received aStandard Design Approval from Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) in
July 2012.1207 But there have been no orders within South Korea, primarily because of adverse

1198 - Darrell Proctor, “Nuclear First—Work Starts on Russian Fast Neutron Reactor”, POWER Magazine, 8 June 2021,
see https://www.powermag.com/nuclear-first-work-starts-on-russian-fast-neutron-reactor/, accessed 27 June 2021.
However, it remains uncertain whether the launch event actually involved the technical construction start with the concreting of thebase slab of the reactor building.
1199 - NEI, “Preparatory construction for Brest-300 reactor begins in Russia”, 22 May 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newspreparatory-construction-for-brest-300-reactor-begins-in-russia-7936880; and WNN, “Russia awards contract to build
BREST reactor”, 5 December 2019, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Russia-awards-contract-to-build-BREST-reactor,
both accessed 7 July 2020.
1200 - Gary Peach, “Construction Starts on Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor”, NIW, 11 June 2021.
1201 - Gary Peach, “Russia: Large Commercial Breeder Design Targeted for 2014”, NIW, 16 March 2012.
1202 - Anatoli Diakov, “Status and prospects for Russia’s fuel cycle”, Science & Global Security, 2013.
1203 - M. Hadid Subki, “Global Development Trends, Prospects and Issues for SMRs Deployment”, presented at the 23rd TWG - GCR
Meeting, 5 March 2013.
1204 - Darrell Proctor, “Nuclear First—Work Starts on Russian Fast Neutron Reactor”, Power Magazine, 2021, op. cit.
1205 - Anatoli Diakov and Pavel Podvig, “Construction of Russia’s BN-1200 fast-neutron reactor delayed until 2030s”, IPFM Blog,
20 August 2019, see http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2019/08/the_construction_of_the_b.html, accessed 7 July 2020.
1206 - WNA, “Generation IV Nuclear Reactors”, December 2020, see https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/
nuclear-power-reactors/generation-iv-nuclear-reactors.aspx, accessed 27 June 2021.
1207 - Kwon Dong-joon, “Korean All-in-one SMR Won World’s First Standard Design Approval”, Korea IT News, Electronic Times

Interne t, 5 July 2012, see http://english.etnews.com/20120705200008, accessed 1 May 2017.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 economics. Indeed, the description of SMART in the IAEA’s 2020 edition of its book on SMRs
is more candid about this challenge than most other SMR designs in stating thatthe target overnight plant construction cost of a FOAK1208 unit is [US]$10000/kW(e) and an
operating and maintenance cost of 2.8 ¢/kWh. For NOAK1209 unit of SMART, the total cost is
expected to be 30~40% lesser.1210

The high cost is likely the reason that in April 2021, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP)
announced that it is “carrying out a project to improve the” SMART design, with the aim ofobtaining “a license for the improved SMART by 2028”.1211
At the same time, there is an ongoing effort to export SMART reactors, especially in the
Middle East, which has been a major focus of nuclear reactor vendors.1212 South Korea has beenworking with Saudi Arabia in the hope that the country will not be the only customer but
would also play a role in facilitating other sales. The cooperation started in 2015 when the Korea
Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with theKing Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KA-CARE), to “conduct a three-year
preliminary study to review the feasibility of constructing SMART reactors in Saudi Arabia”.1213
In January 2020, the agreement was updated to accommodate “a request from Saudi Arabia
that KHNP participates in the project as the company’s experience in the construction andoperation of power reactors would reduce risks in the construction of the first SMART unit”.1214
The partnership between Saudi Arabia and South Korea is somewhat atypical and Saudi
engineers have been playing a role in a redesign of the SMART reactor; it is reported that
“Saudi engineers wanted a truly passive system, rather than the hybrid active/passive systemin the licensed 100 MW Smart design, and a joint team…engineered away the active pump
and active power needs of the reactor. The joint team also uprated the reactor by 10%, from
330 MW thermal to 365 MWt, and from 100 MWe to 110 MWe”.1215 An application for yet
another NSSC standard design approval for this design was submitted in October 2020, andthe review process is underway.
In June 2021, KAERI and Samsung Heavy Industries announced plans to develop molten salt
reactors for marine propulsion and floating nuclear power plants but commercial operations
were projected to be only “in the mid-2030s”.1216
1208 - First-of-a-kind.
1209 - Nth-of-a-kind.
1210 - See page 56 in IAEA, “Advances in Small Modular Reactor Technology Developments — A Supplement to IAEA Advanced
Reactors Information System (ARIS) 2020 Edition”, September 2020, see https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/20-02619E_ALWCR_ARIS_
Booklet_WEB.pdf.
1211 - Jung Min-hee, “KHNP to Accelerate Development of Innovative SMRs”, Businesskorea, 20 April 2021,
see http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=65179, accessed 24 June 2021.
1212 - M. V. Ramana and Zia Mian, “Scrambling to sell a nuclear Middle East”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2016.
1213 - WNN, “Saudi Arabia teams up with Korea on SMART”, 4 March 2015, see http://world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Saudi-Arabia-teamsup-with-Korea-on-SMART-0403154.html, accessed 30 May 2021.
1214 - WNN, “Korea, Saudi Arabia progress with SMART collaboration”, 7 January 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Korea-Saudi-Arabia-progress-with-SMART-collaborati, accessed 4 July 2020.
1215 - Phil Chaffee, “Smart SMR Cements Saudi-Korean Partnership”, NIW, 10 July 2020.
1216 - Charles Lee, “South Korea companies develop molten salt reactor for shipping, power generation”, S&P Global Platts,
22 June 2021, see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/062221-south-korea-companies-developmolten-salt-reactor-for-shipping-power-generation, accessed 23 June 2021.

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UNITED KINGDOMThe United Kingdom’s interest in SMRs follows a 2014 feasibility study carried out by
the National Nuclear Laboratory and funded by seven nuclear organizations, including
Rolls Royce.1217 The following year’s budget included a promise to spend “at least £250 million”(US$2015380 million) to “position the UK as a global leader in innovative nuclear technologies”
and on a competition to identify the best SMR-design and aim to build “one of the world’s
first SMRs in the UK in the 2020s”.1218 That funding was never made available; but inNovember 2020, as part of an economic stimulus plan to recover from the coronavirus
pandemic, the government announced a plan to deliver “new and advanced nuclear power”.1219
The new plan includes the announcement of “up to £385 million [US$2020499 million] in an
Advanced Nuclear Fund” that is subject to “value-for-money and future spending rounds”;
the figure includes “up to £215 million [US$2020278 million] into Small Modular Reactors todevelop a domestic smaller-scale power plant technology design that could potentially bebuilt in factories and then assembled on site” and “up to £170 million [US$2020220 million]
for a research and development programme on Advanced Modular Reactors”. There is also a
promise that this funding “will unlock up to £300 million [US$2020388 million] private sector
match-funding” although such funding has so far not been forthcoming.
The company that is expected to benefit from the “up to £215 million [US$2020278 million]”
funding package for SMRs is Rolls Royce. Rolls Royce’s SMR design, which has been named“UK SMR”, started being designed to generate 440 MW, i.e., not meeting the definition of asmall reactor.1220 More recently, its design output has been increased to 470 MW.1221 This
increase is not surprising, and other SMR vendors have also increased the power outputs fortheir SMR designs, presumably to take advantage of economies of scale; the U.S. NuScale
design is a good example.1222 In May 2021, the U.K. SMR consortium announced plans to submit
the design for regulatory assessment “in the second half of this year”.1223

1217 - WNN, “National Nuclear Laboratory urges UK investment in SMRs”, 4 December 2014, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
NN-National-Nuclear-Laboratory-urges-UK-investment-in-SMRs-4121401.html, accessed 6 July 2019.
1218 - Damian Carrington, “George Osborne puts UK at the heart of global race for mini-nuclear reactors”, The Guardian,
24 November 2015, see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/24/mini-nuclear-reactors-answer-to-climate-changecrisis, accessed 6 July 2019.
1219 - Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Prime Minister’s Office, “The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial
Revolution”, Policy Paper, U.K. Government, Updated 18 November 2020, see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-tenpoint-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution/title, accessed 27 June 2021.
1220 - Rolls Royce, “UK SMR: A National Endeavour”, September 2017, see https://www.uknuclearsmr.org/uk-smr-a-nationalendeavour-report/, accessed 6 July 2019.
1221 - WNN, “Rolls-Royce on track for 2030 delivery of UK SMR”, 11 February 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/RollsRoyce-on-track-for-2030-delivery-of-UK-SMR, accessed 27 June 2021.
1222 - Stephanie Cooke, “NuScale Moves to Larger-Scale Modules”, NIW, 12 February 2021; and M. V. Ramana, “Eyes wide shut:
Problems with the Utah associated municipal power systems proposal to construct NuScale small modular nuclear reactors”,
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, September 2020, see https://www.oregonpsr.org/small_modular_reactors_smrs,
accessed 13 October 2020.
1223 - WNN, “UK SMR to start regulatory process this autumn”, 17 May 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UKSMR-to-start-regulatory-process-this-autumn, accessed 27 June 2021.

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UNITED STATESThe United States continues to actively pursue SMRs and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting research and development workon SMRs over the past decade. In 2020, the DOE awarded US$80 million each to Terrapower(for their Natrium reactor design) and X-energy “in initial funding to test, license, and build”
within seven years.1224 It is estimated that each of these designs “could receive a total of
between $400 million and $4 billion in funding over the next 5 to 7 years”.1225 Both companies
have entered into agreements with Energy Northwest in Washington State.1226 However, inJune 2021 it was announced that the Terrapower reactor project will instead be built at a site in
Wyoming, owned by PacifiCorp.1227
The NuScale design is widely regarded as the closest to deployment in the U.S., because it is
the first SMR design to have received a Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) from the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).1228 The FSER covers a design with 50-MW modules
and the application was submitted in 2016.1229 However, in a sign of the economic challenges it
confronts, the output of the NuScale design has been increased from 50 MW to first 60 MW,1230
and then to 77 MW per module.1231 The output had already been increased multiple times.1232
NuScale would have to submit new design details to the NRC for the uprate to be permitted.
Meanwhile, the first NuScale project to be constructed in Idaho with electricity to be purchased
by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) has been looking more tentative. In
2020, at least eight municipalities withdrew from the project, and others cut the power levels
they had committed to.1233 As a result, the level of subscription to this project declined from213 MW to 100.6 MW.1234 In other words, less than a ninth of the output of a typical 12-pack of1224 - Rita Baranwal, “It’s Time for the United States to Demonstrate Advanced Reactors”, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Departmentof Energy, 14 October 2020, see https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/it-s-time-united-states-demonstrate-advanced-reactors-0,
accessed 27 June 2021.
1225 - Adrian Cho, “Department of Energy picks two advanced nuclear reactors for demonstration projects”, Science, 16 October 2020,see https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/department-energy-picks-two-advanced-nuclear-reactors-demonstration-projects,
accessed 27 June 2021.
1226 - Wendy Culverwell, “Federal awards put Tri-Cities on map for next generation nuclear power”, Tri-Cities Area Journal ofBusiness, 25 December 2020, see https://www.tricitiesbusinessnews.com/2020/12/energy-nw/, accessed 27 June 2021.
1227 - Journal of Business, “Tri-Cities loses TerraPower advanced nuclear plant to coal site in Wyoming”, June 2021,
see https://www.tricitiesbusinessnews.com/2021/06/terrapower/, accessed 30 August 2021.
1228 - WNN, “NuScale SMR receives US design certification approval”, 1 September 2020, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
NuScale-SMR-receives-US-design-certification-appro, accessed 1 September 2020.
1229 - NuScale Power, “NuScale Submits First Ever Small Modular Reactor Design Certification Application (DCA)”, 12 January 2012,see http://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-release/company/nuscale-submits-first-ever-small-modular-reactor-designcertification-applicat, accessed 29 April 2017.
1230 - NuScale Power, “Breakthrough for NuScale Power; Increase in its SMR Output Delivers Customers 20 Percent More Power”,
6 June 2018, see https://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/news-details/2018/Breakthrough-for-NuScale-Power-Increase-inIts-SMR-Output-Delivers-Customers-20-Percent-More-Power/default.aspx, accessed 27 June 2021.
1231 - Stephanie Cooke, “NuScale Moves to Larger-Scale Modules”, NIW, 2021, op. cit.
1232 - M.V. Ramana, “Eyes Wide Shut: Problems with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems Proposal to Construct NuScale
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors”, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2020, op. cit.
1233 - Sonal Patel, “Shakeup for 720-mw nuclear SMR project as more cities withdraw participation”, Power Magazine,
29 October 2020, see https://www.powermag.com/shakeup-for-720-mw-nuclear-smr-project-as-more-cities-withdraw-participation/,
accessed 29 October 2020.
1234 - UAMPS, “Carbon Free Power Project Resource ‘Option’ Update”, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, February 2021,
see https://losalamos.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=losalamos_7a21a2e19e64df6f2949137241f1d18a.pdf&view=1,
accessed 27 June 2021.

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77-MW NuScale modules has guaranteed purchasers.1235 As costs for the project increase, it ispossible that even more subscribers quit the project. Another source of potential delays are thefinancial troubles of Fluor Corporation, reflected in its stock prices that dropped to less thana third of the roughly US$60 price in October 2018. NuScale has entered into agreements withother utilities, for example, the Grant County Public Utility,1236 but their potential uptake isquite limited.

CONCLUSION
The amplification of the talk about SMRs and related media coverage over the past year is
not reflected by any major industrial achievements on the ground. There have been additional
funding announcements, but no additional design certifications beyond an already outdated
NuScale design in the U.S.; further delays in the construction of units in Argentina and China;
no concrete steps toward construction of further units, with the exception of the BREST-300
in Russia, which is at the edge of the definition of SMRs, did not follow any design certification
as practiced in most western industrialized countries, and is years behind schedule.
In August 2020, a report on Poland’s draft nuclear newbuild plan dismissed the SMR concept
saying:To date, no construction contracts have been concluded, and there is no complete design andimplementation documentation (construction projects) that could be subject to verification…
Therefore, at the present stage, it is not possible to reliably estimate the future costs ofsuch facilities. The philosophy of both the integrated construction and the ‘addition’ of newreactors (modules), adopted in many cases by the designers, indicates possible operational
problems and high costs of renovation works…1237

The critique appears coherent as far as it goes, but it does not quite reflect the growing
evidence that SMRs, like large reactors, will continue to be subject to delays and cost overruns,
and the high likelihood that they would not be economical even under the most favorable
circumstances.

1235 - In July 2021, NuScale announced it could go with a “6-pack” with 462 MW at a cost of US$ 5.3 billion; see Michael McAuliffe,“UAMPS to go with six-unit NuScale SMR plant, smaller than original”, Nucleonics Week, 22 July 2021.
1236 - NuScale and Grant County Public Utility District, “NuScale Power and Grant County Public Utility District Sign Memorandumof Understanding to Explore Nuclear Energy Deployment in Washington State”, BusinessWire, 26 May 2021, see https://www.
businesswire.com/news/home/20210526005248/en/NuScale-Power-and-Grant-County-Public-Utility-District-Sign-Memorandum-ofUnderstanding-to-Explore-Nuclear-Energy-Deployment-in-Washington-State, accessed 27 June 2021.
1237 - Phil Chaffee, “Is Poland Angling for a US Newbuild Deal?”, NIW, 21 August 2020.

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NUCLEAR POWER VS.
RENEWABLE ENERGYDEPLOYMENTINTRODUCTION
2021 is a pivotal year for climate change policy with the upcoming 26th meeting of the partiesof the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26, UNFCCC) in
November. This is a key meeting of the UNFCCC as all parties are expected to review andrevise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which contain their adaptation andmitigation plans until 2030. Over the past year, blocs such as the EU, and countries including
Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. have put forward national strategies to accelerate theircarbon abatement targets and plans. These plans, according to Climate Analytics, if fully
implemented, will reduce global warming and contain rises in global temperatures to 2.4°C(degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, compared to a likely increase of 2.9°C assumed
within the 2015 Paris Agreement.1238
While this progress has been welcome, it still falls short of the objectives of the Paris Agreement
to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial
levels. Therefore, it is expected that all countries, but especially the major emitters, will comeforward with more carbon mitigation plans, including sector initiatives. Furthermore, in andaround COP26, non-state actors, such as cities and industrial sectors, are expected to put
forward strategies to accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies and practices.
In preparation for COP26, which is being held in the city of Glasgow in Scotland, theInternational Energy Agency (IEA) published a report outlining a strategy for the energy sector
to meet the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement, and concluded that in their scenario“by 2050, almost 90% of electricity generation comes from renewable sources, with wind andsolar PV together accounting for nearly 70%”.1239 This is a remarkable perspective from the
IEA, which in its scenarios has so long underestimated and downplayed the role for renewableenergy.
The IEA assumes in this scenario that nuclear will maintain its share of the global power market
at about 10 percent. This would require an increase in output (from 2,698 to 5,497 TWh) due
to the overall growth in energy demand and the continued electrification of the transport andheating sector. Given the developments of nuclear power over the past 30 years, with only
very limited increases in use—in 1990 nuclear produced about 2,000 TWh and 2,553 TWhin 2020—it would require a sea-change in the fortunes of the technology. Rather, there is1238 - Climate Analytics, “Global update: Projected warming from Paris pledges drops to 2.4 degrees after US Summit: analysis”,
4 May 2021, see https://climateanalytics.org/latest/global-update-projected-warming-from-paris-pledges-drops-to-24-degrees-afterus-summit-analysis/, accessed 6 June 2021.
1239 - IEA, “Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector”, International Energy Agency, May 2021,
see https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050, accessed 6 June 2021.

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growing recognition that even with a rapid increase in the global use of electricity, renewables,
primarily solar and wind, will do the “heavy lifting”.
From an analytical position this is not surprising, as this chapter shows—and has done so forseveral years—renewables are out-deploying and are significantly cheaper than nuclear power.
Consequently, more investment is taking place in renewables, which leads to lower price andmore deployment experience, creating a virtuous circle in which renewables are becoming
cheaper than all other forms of electricity generation.

INVESTMENT
Figure 42 compares the annual investment decisions for constructing new nuclear plants
with those for renewable energy since 2004. Construction began on five nuclear reactors in
2020, four in China and one in Turkey. The total reported and estimated investment for theconstruction of the 2020-projects is around US$18.3 billion for 5 GW. This is one eighth of theindividual investments in wind and solar, with over US$142 billion investment in wind powerand US$149 billion in solar. The total investment in non-hydro renewables globally, despite theeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, was US$303.5 billion. Significantly, falling capitalcosts enabled record volumes of both solar (132 GW) and wind (73 GW) power plants to beinstalled despite relatively small increases in investment.1240
Figure 42 · Global Investment Decisions in Renewables and Nuclear Power 2004–2020

Global Investment Decisions in
New Renewables and Nuclear Power© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

in US$ billion, 2004-2020

300

250

200

150

Other Renewables

100

Solar
Wind

50

Nuclear*2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

0

Sources: FS-UNEP/BNEF 2018, 2020, REN21 2019, BNEF 2021 and WNISR Original Research, 2021

Note:
*In the absence of comprehensive, publicly available investment estimates for nuclear power by year, and to simplify the approach, WNISR includes the total
projected investment costs in the year in which construction was started, rather than spreading them out over the entire construction period. Furthermore,
nuclear investment figures do not include revised budgets if—as generally is the case—cost overruns occur.

1240 - BNEF, “Energy Transition Investment Hit $500 Billion in 2020 – For First Time”, BloombergNEF, 19 January 2021,
see https://about.bnef.com/blog/energy-transition-investment-hit-500-billion-in-2020-for-first-time/, accessed 6 June 2021.

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Globally, the relative importance of Europe and North America for renewable energy
investments diminished, with the rise of Asia, especially China (see Figure 43) although that
relative dominance shrank in recent years. Chinese nominal-dollar renewable investment rosefrom US$26 billion in 2008 to US$140 billion in 2017 before a steep cut to US$94 billion in
2018, US$95 billion in 2019 and US$85 billion in 2020. The last and lowest figure is just about
equal to the total cumulative investment in nuclear power plants in China since 2008, which isalso approximately US$85 billion.
Figure 43 · Regional Breakdown of Nuclear and Renewable Energy Investment Decisions 2011–2020

Regional Breakdown of Nuclear and Renewable Energy Investment Decisions
in US$ Billion, 2011–2020

300

250

Renewable

200

NuclearAsia (excluding China
and India)

100

50

0

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

150

India
China
Middle East
and Africa
Europe (including Turkey)
Americas (excluding U.S.)
U.S.

Sources: REN21, BNEF/UNEP, WNISR Original Analysis, 2021

TECHNOLOGY COSTS
The annual Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis for the U.S. last updated by Lazard,
one of the oldest banks in the world, in October 20201241, suggests that unsubsidized average
electricity generating costs declined between 2015 and 2020 in the case of solar PV (crystalline,
utility-scale) from US$64 to US$37 per MWh, and for onshore wind from US$55 to US$40 per
MWh, while nuclear power costs went up from US$117 to US$163 per MWh. Over the past five
years alone, the LCOE of nuclear electricity has risen by 39 percent, while renewables have now
become the cheapest of any type of power generation.

1241 - Lazard, “Levelized Cost of Energy and of Storage – 2020”, 19 October 2020, see http://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelizedcost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2020/, accessed 6 June 2021.

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Since 2009, when Lazard started publishing its LCOE estimates in the current format, solar PV
costs dropped by 90 percent, onshore wind by 70 percent, while nuclear power increased by
one third (see Figure 44).
Figure 44 · The Declining Costs of Renewables vs. Traditional Power Sources

Selected Historical Mean Costs by Technology
LCOE values in US$/MWh *350
Nuclear: 123 → 163

300

Coal: 111 → 112

250

Gas - Combined Cycle: 83 → 59
Wind: 135 → 41
Solar PV-Crystalline: 359 → 37

200

+33%

150

+1%

100
50
0
2009
3.0

–29%
–70%
–90%

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

2010
4.0

2011
5.0

2012
6.0

2013 2014 2015
7.0
8.0
9.0
Lazard LCOE Versions

2016
10.0

2017
11.0

2018
12.0

2019
13.0

2020
14.0

* Reflects total decrease in mean LCOE since Lazard's LCOE VERSION 3.0 in 2009.

Source: Lazard Estimates, 2020

1242

Notes
LCOE=Levelized Cost of Energy*This graph reflects the average of unsubsidized high and low LCOE range for a given version of LCOE study. It primarily relates to the North American
renewable energy landscape but reflects broader/global cost declines.

Globally the cost of renewables is now significantly below that of either nuclear power or gas.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), wind and solar power are now thecheapest form of new electricity in most of the world. Furthermore, BNEF anticipates that it
will be more expensive to operate existing coal or natural gas power plants in five years than tobuild new solar or wind farms.1243
The first half of 2021 saw a number of remarkably low prices for renewable electricity. In
April in Saudi Arabia a 600 MW Shuaibah solar project to be developed by a consortium of
ACWA Power, Gulf Investment and Al Babtain Contracting achieved a record low electricity
price at US$ 10.40/MWh. This beats the previous global record low claimed by Portugal inAugust 2020 of €11.14/MWh (US$13.23/MWh) for a solar project.1244 In Spain in January 2021,
the Government auctioned tenders for 3 GW of renewable capacity, with the lowest awarded1242 - Lazard, “Levelized Cost of Energy and of Storage – 2020”, 2020, op. cit.
1243 - Jeremy Hodges, “Wind, Solar Are Cheapest Power Source In Most Places, BNEF Says”, Bloomberg, 19 October 2020,see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-19/wind-solar-are-cheapest-power-source-in-most-places-bnef-says,
accessed 6 June 2021.
1244 - Sophie Vorrath, “Saudi solar plant locks in new record low price for power: 1.04c/kWh”, RenewEconomy, 13 April 2021,
see https://reneweconomy.com.au/saudi-solar-plant-locks-in-new-record-low-price-for-power-1-04c-kwh/, accessed 10 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 contracts for €15/MWh (US$18/MWh) for solar and €20/MWh (US$24/MWh) for onshore
wind.1245
In their annual review of renewable energy costs, the International Renewable Energy
Agency (IRENA) concludes:
In 2020, the global weighted-average levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from new capacity
additions of onshore wind declined by 13%, compared to 2019. Over the same period, the
LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and that of utility-scale photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.1246

IRENA agrees with BNEF and calculated that 800 GW of existing coal-fired capacity havehigher operating costs than new utility-scale solar PV at US$57/MWh and onshore wind at
US$39/MWh, including US$0.005/kWh for additional system integration costs. Replacingthese coal-fired plants would cut annual system costs by US$32 billion per year and reduce
annual emissions by around 3 billion tons of CO2.1247
The same logic applies to the operation of nuclear power plants. The running of aging nuclear
power plants generally leads to higher operating and maintenance costs. Only in the U.S.,
the nuclear industry has claimed a cost reduction from an average US$44.6/MWh in 2012 to
US$30.4/MWh in 2019, in particular due to a significant drop in investments.1248 The analysesof potential implications on safety and security are not within the scope of this report. The
U.S. nuclear operators have managed an impressive load factor of around 90 percent for mostof the past two decades. That helps managing costs.
In France, the Court of Accounts (Cour des comptes) calculated in 2016 a nuclear generating
cost of €201362.6/MWh (US$202178/MWh) for a national production of 410 TWh. The Court
made it very clear that the overall costs were much more sensitive to the volume of production
than to investment costs.1249 In 2020, the French volume of generated nuclear power
remained 18 percent below the reference production with a load factor at mediocre 67 percent(see France Focus). No doubt, the massive French refurbishment program—€100 billion(US$118 billion) for the period 2014–2030—has so far not led to increased productivity, rather
on the contrary. There is no doubt that renewable power generating prices as seen in Portugal
and Spain undercut French nuclear operating costs severalfold. Even in the U.S., with much
lower operating costs, operating reactors are pushed out of the market unless they are heavily
subsidized (see United States Focus).
As renewable energies keep becoming cheaper, the cost of electricity produced from renewables
is dropping below the operation, maintenance, and fuel costs for nuclear power plants in many
countries. This was extensively demonstrated in the WNISR2019 Chapter on Climate Change
and Nuclear Power.
1245 - Wind Europe, “Onshore wind energy scores lowest ever price under new Spanish auction design”, 27 January 2021,
see https://windeurope.org/newsroom/news/onshore-wind-energy-scores-lowest-ever-price-under-new-spanish-auction-design/,
accessed 10 July 2021.
1246 - IRENA, “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020”, June 2021, see https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/RenewablePower-Costs-in-2020, accessed 26 June 2021.
1247 - Ibidem.
1248 - NEI, “Nuclear Costs in Context”, Nuclear Energy Institute, 21 October 2020, see https://www.nei.org/resources/reports-briefs/
nuclear-costs-in-context, accessed 2 September 2021.
1249 - A 50 percent reduction in output would double the generating costs. See Cour des comptes, “Rapport Public 2016”, Tome 1,
February 2016.

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As the share of variable renewables (VRE), such as solar and wind, increases there will bechallenges for grid management. System flexibility will be key, with a variety of solutions
available, such as energy storage in various forms, demand side management, interconnection,and backup generation. Even with relatively high levels of VRE the technologies and costs
are widely known. An assessment undertaken by the UK Energy Research Center found thatmedian values for operating reserve costs were less than €5/MWh (US$6/MWh) when VRE
contributed up to 35 percent of annual electricity production, and less than €10/MWh (US$12/
MWh) when VRE contribution is up to 45 percent.1250
With limited experience of even greater penetrations of renewables the costs are less certain,
but storage costs are falling rapidly. Lithium-ion batteries, which are both used in electricvehicles and for short term grid balancing, were above US$1,100/kWh in 2010 and have fallen
89 percent in real terms to US$137/kWh in 2020. By 2023, average prices are expected to beclose to US$100/kWh according to BNEF.1251 However, there is less certainty over the mediumand long-term (seasonal storage) for electricity, but a variety of options, such as green hydrogenor synthetic fuels are being tested and deployed. Green hydrogen produced with renewable
resources costs about US$3–6.6/kg, according to the European Commission’s July 2020
hydrogen strategy. Fossil-based hydrogen costs about US$1.80/kg. However, Norwegian
electrolyzer-maker NEL ASA in January 2021 announced a goal of producing green hydrogen at
US$1.50/kg by 2025.1252
Figure 45 · IEA 2050 Forecasted Cost of Electricity from Nuclear and Renewables, LCOE (US$/MWh)

2050 Forecasted Average Cost of Electricity from Nuclear and Renewables
in US$/MWh
104
99

-6%

-7%

-46%
46
45

2020

-11%

-14%
-66%

–39%

–58%

2030

2050

Nuclear: 99 → 92
Onshore Wind 46 → 40
Offshore Wind 104 → 35
Solar: 45 → 19
© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

1253

Source: IEA, 2021

1250 - Philip J. Heptonstall and Robert J. K. Gross, “A systematic review of the costs and impacts of integrating variable renewables
into power grids”, Nature Energy, January 2021.
1251 - BloombergNEF, “Battery Pack Prices Cited Below $100/kWh for the First Time in 2020, While Market Average Sits at $137/
kWh”, 16 December 2020, see https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-below-100-kwh-for-the-first-time-in-2020-whilemarket-average-sits-at-137-kwh/, accessed 19 December 2020.
1252 - Tom DiChristopher, “Experts explain why green hydrogen costs have fallen and will keep falling”, SP Global, 5 March 2021,
see https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/experts-explain-why-green-hydrogen-costshave-fallen-and-will-keep-falling-63037203, accessed 10 July 2021.
1253 - IEA, “Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector”, May 2021, op. cit.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 296

In their Net Zero report, the IEA highlights the extent to which the divergence of nuclear
and renewable costs is expected to continue. While the IEA for 2020 indicates much lower
figures for nuclear power costs and higher estimates for wind and solar costs than e.g. Lazard(see Figure 44 and Figure 45), the agency does not see any improvement coming for nuclear
but major continued cost declines for offshore wind and solar. By 2050, solar PV costs areprojected to be one fifth of those from nuclear power, across the EU, China, India, and U.S.
(see Figure 45). In such circumstances, the building of any nuclear power plant would have tobe driven by powerful non-market motivations.

INSTALLED CAPACITY AND
ELECTRICITY GENERATION
Despite the relative slowdown in investment in renewables, the rapid reduction in construction
costs per MW mean that there is still a significant rise in the net annual increase in installedcapacity. In total, a record 256 GW of new-renewable energy capacity (excluding hydro) was
installed in 2020, according to REN21, exceeding the previous record by nearly 30 percent.1254
Figure 46 · Variation of Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the World

Wind, Solar and Nuclear Developments: Installed Capacity and Electricty Production in the Worldin net added TWh

2000

Wind
Solar
Nuclear
Nuclear (excl. LTO)

716
707

605

580

399

217
164
41
17

40

4

15

2005

2010

22

23
-11
2015

41
14

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Annual Production Compared to 1997

in GWe© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Capacity Added Since 2000

42
17

2020

Wind
Solar
Nuclear

1,579
1,406

819

855
707

19

393

363

366

92

334
33

178

2010

2015

180

256

289

3
1997

2000

2005

2020

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, IRENA, BP Statistical Review, 2021

Note pertaining to figures 46 to 56: Unless otherwise indicated, production data for nuclear are net generation, according to IAEA-PRIS; renewables grossdata are from BP Statistical Review. Gross nuclear TWh numbers, when explicitly used, are also from BP. Installed capacity data are from IRENA for wind andsolar and based on IAEA-PRIS for nuclear.

The pace of wind deployment has picked up again and, despite the difficult conditions during
the COVID-19 pandemic, the deployment of wind power was thriving in 2020 with a netincrease in global capacity of 111 GW, according to IRENA, a near doubling of the 58 GW
1254 - REN21, “Renewables 2021 Global Status Report”, 14 June 2021, see http://www.unep.org/resources/report/renewables-2021global-status-report, accessed 18 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 297

addition in 2019. Solar PV increased by 127 GW, a 22.5 percent increase over the 97.6 GW
expansion in 2019.
Figure 46 illustrates the extent to which renewables have been deployed at scale since thestart of the millennium, an increase in capacity of 716 GW for wind and of 707 GW for solar,
according to IRENA, compared to the relative stagnation of nuclear power capacity, which
over this period increased by around 42 GW, including all reactors currently in Long-Term
Outage (LTO). Considering that 25 GW of nuclear power were in LTO as of the end of 2020,
and thus not operating, the balance is an addition of 16.8 GW operating capacity compared to2000.
The characteristics of electricity generating technologies vary due to different load factors.
In general, over the year, operating nuclear power plants produce more electricity per MW
installed than renewables. However, as can be seen in Figure 46, compared to 1997, when the
Kyoto Protocol was signed, there has been an additional 1,579 TWh of wind power in 2020,
over 855 TWh more electricity from solar PV, compared to an additional 289 TWh (309 TWhgross)1255 of nuclear energy. In other words, over that 23-year period, wind turbines added
5.5-times more low-carbon electricity to the world’s grids than nuclear power added, whilesolar panels contributed three times more to the increase.
In 2020, according to BP, the annual global growth rates for the generation from wind power
were 11.9 percent (19.1 percent in 2019), 20.9 percent (24.3 percent in 2019) for solar PV, and–3.9 percent (+3.7 percent in 2019) for nuclear power.
Figure 47 · Net Added Electricity Generation by Power Source 2010–2020

Power Generation in the World
Annual Production Compared to 2010

2,386

in added TWh (gross) by Source

Non-Hydro Renewables

1,395

Gas
Hydro
Coal

861
787

NuclearOil
0© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

-68
-193

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Source: BP Statistical Review, 2021

The growth of renewable energy is now not only outcompeting nuclear power but is rapidly
overtaking fossil fuels and has become the source of economic choice for new generation.
Figure 47 shows the extent to which, over the past decade, different energy sources have1255 - Unless otherwise indicated, production data for renewables are in gross TWh from BP, nuclear production data are usually net
TWh from IAEA-PRIS, gross nuclear TWh numbers are also from BP.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 298

increased their electricity production. The energy source that has provided the greatest
amount of additional electricity over the past decade is non-hydro renewables, generating an
additional 2,386 TWh of power. The sector with the next largest growth was gas, then hydroand coal. Due to the collapse of production in nuclear in 2020, generation was lower than in2010 and only oil had a greater decline in production over the past decade.
Figure 48 · Nuclear vs. Non-Hydro Renewable Electricity Production in the World

Nuclear vs. Non-Hydro Renewable Electricity Productionin the World 2011–2020
in TWh (gross)

Wind
Solar
Other Renewables

700
856
1,591

3,147

3000

Nuclear

2,700

2,653

2500
2000

908

1500

403
65
440

1000
500

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

0

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: BP Statistical Review, 2021

In 2019, for the first time, non-hydro renewables—solar, wind, and mainly biomass—generated
more power than nuclear plants. In 2020, with the significant drop of nuclear output, the gap
widened, and renewables generated globally 16.5 percent more electricity than nuclear reactors(see Figure 48).

As Figure 49 shows, the individual installed capacity of both solar and wind is now approaching
double that of nuclear power, which has been achieved in just two decades. While their
combined outputs are still slightly lower than that of nuclear power, it is possible that in 2021
this will be revised. If this occurs it will have taken these industries just 20 years to achieve
what the nuclear industry has done in more than half a century.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 299

Figure 49 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in the World

Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the World
Installed Capacity
622

581

416
367

707

371
365

339

391 392
364 367

217
181

58
17

5

2000

2005

in TWh/year© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Wind
Solar
Nuclear
Nuclear (excl. LTO)

350

Annual Production733

in GWe

40
2010

2015

2020

1997

2,657

2,630
2,444

2,441

2,626

2,553
2,346

1,591
1,418

Nuclear
Wind
Solar

831

856
708

347
31

104

2000

2005

256

34
2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR, IAEA-PRIS, IRENA, BP Statistical Review, 2021

STATUS AND TRENDS IN CHINA, THE EUROPEAN
UNION, INDIA, AND THE UNITED STATES
China
China remains one of the most important countries in terms of renewable energy
manufacturing and deployment, and the latest Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country
Attractiveness index has China in second spot behind the U.S.1256
In the case of China, there is usually a range of numbers for capacity and production volumesof energy, depending on the sources, especially for renewable sources. According to the China
Electricity Council, by the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of renewable energy was
794 GW, up 9 percent from the previous year. This included 370 GW of hydro, 281 GW ofwind and 253 GW of solar, which account for 41 percent of the installed capacity. The installedcapacity of nuclear is 47.5 GW, with 2 GW installed in 2020. As can be seen in Figure 50 thegrowth of both solar and wind has been consistent and rapid—with annual growth rates in
the last decade averaging 85 percent and 28 percent respectively—rising by 250 GW for solar,
235 GW for wind and just 36 GW of nuclear capacity.
In 2020, renewable-energy-based power generation grew faster than any other energy sources,
with wind producing 466 TWh, solar, 261 TWh, compared to 366 TWh gross for nuclear and
1,355 TWh gross for hydro according to data from the China Electricity Council. In 2020, windincreased its production by 15 percent, solar 17 percent, and nuclear 5 percent.1257
1256 - EY, “Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index”, May 2021, see https://www.ey.com/en_uk/recai, accessed 1 June 2021.
1257 - China Electricity Council, “2020 electricity & other energy statistics (preliminary)”, China Energy Portal, 22 January 2021,
see https://chinaenergyportal.org/2020-electricity-other-energy-statistics-preliminary/, accessed 1 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 300

Nuclear output grew by an impressive 4.8 times between 2010 and 2020, while wind increased
9.4 times and solar over 350 times. As can be seen in Figure 50 and Figure 51, based oninternational figures published by BP and the IAEA (which differ slightly from those publishedby Chinese organizations) the total amount of energy generated by non-hydro renewables in2020 is more than double that by nuclear power. This growth is all the more remarkable, as
these technologies only surpassed nuclear power a decade ago, and China is by far the world’s
leading proponent of nuclear power.
Figure 50 · Nuclear vs Non-Hydro Renewables in China 2000–2020

Nuclear vs. Non-Hydro Renewable Electricity Productionin China 2000–2020
in TWh (gross)
863

136
261
466
366

800

Wind
Solar
Other Non-Hydro Renewables

600

Nuclear

400
75

25
1
49
75

200

0

17
2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

2016

2018

2020

0

Sources: BP Statistical Review, 2021

China’s energy and climate policies are determined primarily by five-year plans and the
National Energy Strategy (2016–2030), set initially on the national level and then translated
into provincial- and city-level targets. In March 2021, the Central Government announced its
intentions for the 14th Five Year Plan (2021–2025), suggesting that the share of non-fossil fuelsin the energy mix increase to 20 percent, up from 15 percent in the current 5-year plan. Key
high-level targets for the energy sector were also to improve the economy’s energy intensity by
13.5 percent and carbon intensity by 18 percent over these five years.
China’s initial NDC submission to the UNFCCC in 2015 indicated that it would aim to peakCO2 emissions around 2030 and make best efforts to peak early. In September 2020, to thesurprise of many, President Xi said China would aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030
and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 301

Figure 51 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in China 2000–2020

Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in China 2000–2020© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

in GWe
210

254
205

Wind
Solar
Nuclear

131

44

30
2

7

10

2000

2005

2010

46 48

2020

466

in TWh/year
405

345
Wind
Nuclear
Solar

330

261
186

224

161
50
16

27
2015

Annual Production© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

282

Installed Capacity

2000

2
2005

71
39
49

1
2010

2015

2020

Sources: IRENA, BP, IAEA-PRIS, WNISR, 2021

Then, at the UN Climate Ambition Summit in December 2020, President Xi announced that
China would lower its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 65 percent from 2005 levels andincrease the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 percent by
2030. This target is for energy as a whole, and it is suggested that by 2030 at least 40 percent
of electricity will come from non-fossils.1258 This target would require a combined 1,200 GW
of solar and wind by 2030, which, while representing a vast increase from current installedcapacity levels, is along current trajectories, rather than a step-change in the rate of growth.1259
The targets for nuclear are less clear, but some government researchers suggest it could be
about 130 GW by 2030, a more than doubling of current capacity.1260 However, such targets are,given the long construction times of nuclear—in most countries at least five years, ten years on
global average, and even in China an average of six years over the past decade—are unlikely,
with only 17 GW currently under-construction. Therefore, at best, China will have another
20 GW of nuclear capacity operating by the end of the 14th Five Year Plan, totaling 68.5 GW.
Therefore 100 GW of operating nuclear capacity by 2030 seems more realistic, which would
still make it the world’s largest reactor fleet, but an order of magnitude below the installedcapacity and significantly below the output of each, solar and wind, individually.

1258 - Muyu Xu and David Stanway, “China plans to raise minimum renewable power purchase to 40% by 2030: government
document”, Reuters, 10 February 2021, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-climatechange-renewables-idUSKBN2AA0BA,
accessed 2 June 2021.
1259 - Lin Jiang and He Gang, “China can benefit from a more ambitious 2030 solar and wind target”, China Dialogue, 2 February 2021,
see https://chinadialogue.net/en/energy/china-can-benefit-from-a-more-ambitious-2030-solar-and-wind-target/, accessed 2 June 2021.
1260 - Jason Rogers and Feifei Shen, “China to miss nuclear energy target this year, but has eyes set on dominating sector by 2030”,

The Print, 2 June 2020, see https://theprint.in/world/china-to-miss-nuclear-energy-target-this-year-but-has-eyes-set-on-dominatingsector-by-2030/433899/, accessed 2 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 302

European Union
In the European Union (EU), renewables, including hydro, continue to grow and for the firsttime they overtook fossil fuels to become the primary source of power in 2020. Renewablesrose to generate 38 percent of Europe’s electricity in 2020 (compared to 34.6 percent in 2019),
with fossil fuels falling to 37 percent. Coal fell by 20 percent in the year, halved its production
from 2015, and gas-produced electricity decreased by 4 percent.
Figure 52 · Electricity Generation in the EU27 by Fuel, 2011–2020

Electricity Production in the EU27 2011–2020
in TWh/year
1,431

352
163
144
396

1200

644

900

307
125
47
165

1,054

1,020

Fossil900

Nuclear

799

Hydro
652

600

600

Other Non-Hydro
Renewables
Solar

300

300

0

2011

2012

2015
2016
2017
©2013
WNISR 2014
- Mycle Schneider
Consulting

2018

2019

2020

0

Wind
Note: Due to rounding,numbers may not add up© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: IAEA-PRIS, Agora Energiewende and Ember, 2021

Nuclear generation fell by 11 percent, its largest fall since 1990. Wind generation rose 9 percent
in 2020 and solar production rose 15 percent, together generating a fifth of Europe’s electricity
in 2020 (wind 14 percent, solar 5 percent).
2020 is also the first time that non-hydro renewables generate with 702 TWh more power than
nuclear reactors with 652 TWh (688 TWh gross) in the EU27 (see Figure 52).
In many countries of the EU27 the share of electricity production is much higher with Denmark
generating 62 percent and Ireland about 35 percent of their electricity from wind and solar in
2020.1261
Since 2000, wind added 164.5 GW of installed capacity, solar 136.2 GW, while nuclear declined
by 20 GW. Since the signature of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, wind and solar increased annual
production by 388 TWh and 146 TWh respectively, while nuclear generated 144 TWh less power(-151.8 TWh gross) (see Figure 53 and Figure 54).

1261 - Agora Energiewende and Ember, “The European Power Sector in 2020 – Up-to-Date Analysis on the Electricity Transition”,
January 2021, see https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/publications/the-european-power-sector-in-2020/, accessed 6 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 303

Figure 53 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27 (Developments)© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Capacity Added Since 2000
in GWe net
155

Wind
Solar
Nuclear (incl. LTO)

165
136

115

118

85
67
27

30

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Wind, Solar and Nuclear Developments: Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27

2
-3

-6

-14

Annual Production Compared to 1997
in net added TWh

388
358

Wind
Solar
Nuclear

256

146

133
100

76
20
15

61
1

125

23
18
-65

-17 -20

-45

-144
2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

1997

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, IRENA, BP, 2021

Figure 54 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27 (Absolute Numbers)Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in the EU27
Annual Production

Installed Capacity

in TWh/year
177
167

124

122

119

127

137
118

104
111
79

107

85
39

30

12
2

2000

2005

2010

Wind
Solar
Nuclear (incl. LTO)
2015

2020

872

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

in GWe
816

1997

2000

814
751

732

652

Nuclear
Wind

395

364

Solar
263
139
21

68
2
2005

100

125

23
2010

146

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, IRENA, BP, 2021

Renewables providing 38 percent of electricity means that it is likely that their share exceeded
the 20-percent primary-energy target set for 2020—in 2019, renewables provided 19.7 percent
of total energy.
In September 2020, the European Commission proposed to increase the EU’s greenhousegases (GHG) reduction target to at least 55 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels, up from the
40-percent minimum target set prior to the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. This
increase was then approved by the EU Heads of State in December 2020, and formallyWo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 submitted as a revised NDC to the UNFCCC. The European Commission’s background paper
for the revised targets states that “the scenarios achieving 55% GHG ambition (including
intra EU aviation and navigation emissions in the target scope) arrive at the RES share of
between 37.5% to 39%.”1262 This is total energy and would likely mean renewables providing
up to 80 percent of power, requiring a significant acceleration of the current rate of renewableelectricity deployment. There is no EU-wide nuclear deployment target.
With half the Member States of the EU operating reactors, nuclear power remains a politicallydivisive issue in Europe. In July 2021, five Member States (Austria, Denmark, Germany,
Luxembourg, and Spain) wrote to the European Commission asking that nuclear power be
excluded from a list of technologies eligible for EU funding under the European Green Dealas they said “nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s ‘do no significant
harm’ principle.”1263 (See Introduction – Nuclear Power and Green Taxonomy). The outcomeof this decision will be an important signal not only of the balance of political support for
nuclear power, but with limited European funds for deployment and the clear preference forrenewables from the private sector the outlook for nuclear power in Europe looks bleak.

India
Since 2010, the installed capacity of solar in India has increased by a factor of over 550 from70 MW to 39.2 GW at the end of 2020, and wind increased by a factor of 2.8 from 13.8 GW to38.5 GW, while nuclear capacity has grown over this period from about 4 GW to 6.2 GW.
Figure 55 shows that since the turn of the century, wind power output has grown rapidly,
from 1.45 TWh to 60.4 TWh in 2020 and has overtaken nuclear’s contribution to electricity
generation since 2016, which now stands at 40.4 TWh (44.6 TWh gross). Solar is also growing
rapidly, from virtual inexistence with a production of 7 GWh in 2000 to 58.7 TWh in 2020—
that represents a sky-rocketing expansion by a factor of 8,000 in two decades. The differencesin output between renewables and nuclear will likely increase in the coming years, because of
the rapid growth of solar and wind capacity, and stagnation in the nuclear sector.
India has put in place ambitious targets for the deployment of renewables with 175 GW by 2022
including 100 GW solar and 60 GW wind. As of April 2021, however, the target was still a longway off, with the best-case expectation that 65 percent of the 2022 target could be met.
As of the end of 2020, total capacity on the grid was 39 GW each for solar and wind with afurther 46 GW (solar and wind) under implementation and 35 GW being tendered.1264

1262 - European Commission, “2030 Climate Target Plan”, 11 September 2020, see https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/eu-climateaction/2030_ctp_en; and European Commission, “Commission Staff Working Document—Impact Assessment”, Accompanying“Communication from the Commission to the Euorpean Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee
and the Committee of the Regions—Stepping up Europe’s 2030 climate ambition—Investing in a climate-neutral future for the
benefit of our people”, 17 September 2020, see https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/eu-climate-action/docs/impact_en.pdf,
both accessed 6 June 2021.
1263 - Frédéric Simon, “Germany leads call to keep nuclear out of EU green finance taxonomy”, Euractiv, 2 July 2021,
see https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/germany-leads-call-to-keep-nuclear-out-of-eu-green-financetaxonomy/, accessed 8 July 2021.
1264 - GlobalData, “India on course to achieve only 65-69% of its 2022 renewable target”, 26 April 2021,
see https://www.power-technology.com/comment/india-achieve-65-69-renewable-target/, accessed 10 June 2021.

| 304

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 305

The failure to meet targets occurs despite world-beating falling costs. IRENA reported that, in
2020, India had the lowest installation costs for onshore wind globally, at US$1038/kW, a fallof 27 percent in the past decade. The global weighted-average LCOE of onshore wind stood at
US$40/MWh, the third lowest (behind China and the U.S.) in the world. For residential andother small-scale PV, IRENA found that India had the lowest LCOE, averaging US$55/MWh.1265
Figure 55 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in India

Wind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Electricity Production in India 2000–2020
Annual Production

Installed Capacity
38

39
38,5

35

Solar
Wind
Nuclear

25

13

4

4

3

0.1

2005

2010

3
2000

5

63

Wind
Solar
Nuclear

59
40
41

33
20.5
16

14

2000

19.5

6

2
2020

60

46
35

6 6

5
2015

in TWh/year© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

in GWe

2005

0.1

7

2010

2015

2020

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, IRENA, BP, 2021

United States
At the end of 2020, the U.S. had 94 operating commercial nuclear reactors, down from 101 in
2012. In 2019 the industry succeeded in generating a new record volume of electricity, with
809 TWh (852 TWh gross) supplying just under 20 percent of the electricity, but in 2020, there
was a 3.6 percent decline and a total of only 790 TWh (831 TWh gross) was produced, thelowest generation level since 2012 (see Figure 56). The decline was as mainly a result of lower
overall power demand due to the pandemic and increased production from other sources.
In contrast, the U.S. generated a record amount of renewable energy in 2020, about 12 percentof the total, the sixth year of continual growth. The production of wind surpassed that ofhydro in 2019 and increased by 14 percent in 2020, while the generation of solar increased by
22 percent.1266
The growth in renewables is expected to increase as more capacity comes online. In both 2019and 2020 more wind was installed than any other generating source, with 14.2 GW in 2020, a
new annual record.1267
1265 - IRENA, “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020”, June 2021, op. cit.
1266 - Mickey Francis, “The United States consumed a record amount of renewable energy in 2020”, U.S.EIA, June 2021,
see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48396, accessed 19 June 2021.
1267 - Richard Bowers and Owen Comstock, “The United States installed more wind turbine capacity in 2020 than in any other year”,
U.S.EIA, March 2021, see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46976, accessed 19 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 306

The election of President Biden in 2020 led to a significant change in direction on a number ofissues, but particularly on climate change, including the rejoining of the Paris Agreement anda pledge to submit a revised NDC. The administration announced this at the U.S.-convened
Climate Leaders’ Summit in April 2021 and committed to a 50–52 percent reduction from 2005
levels by 2030. Part of this carbon-reduction plan is in the power sector, with a pledge to put
the U.S. “on the path to achieving 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035”.1268
One of the cornerstones of the U.S. post-COVID-19 and low-carbon development plan is the
proposed US$2 trillion jobs, infrastructure and clean energy plan. As of June 2021, the scopeand scale of the package is unclear as it has to be approved in the legislative houses, in which
the democrats have slim majorities. Furthermore, the degree of support for renewable energy
and nuclear power is still unclear, with both industries claiming they will receive support.
Both nuclear and renewable energy will likely receive additional research and development
funding, but it is unlikely that this will be sufficient for the nuclear sector to enable commercial
deployment.
However, as documented earlier in the chapter, the costs of renewables in the U.S.,
see Figure 44, are considerably below that of nuclear energy. Furthermore, the U.S. remains
the number one country globally for renewable energy investment, according to the latest
Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness index,1269 and hosts some of thelowest renewable energy generating costs.1270
Figure 56 · Wind, Solar and Nuclear Installed Capacity and Electricity Production in the U.SWind, Solar and Nuclear Capacity and Production in the U.S. 2000–2020
Annual Production

Installed Capacity

98

96

100

99

104
98 97

73

Wind
Nuclear
Solar

74
59

39
22
2
2000

in TWh/year

118

9
1
2005

3
2010

2015

2020

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

in GW

783

756

807

798

809

790

771

Nuclear
Wind
Solar

341

299
193

134

96
6

18

3

2000

2005

2010

39

108

2015

2020

Sources: BP, IRENA, IAEA-PRIS, WNISR, 2021

1268 - The White House, “FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan”, 31 March 2021, see https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/, accessed 8 July 2021.
1269 - EY, “Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index”, Ernst & Young, May 2021, see https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/eysites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/power-and-utilities/power-and-utilities-pdf/ey-recai-57-top-40-ladder.pdf, accessed 2 September 2021.
1270 - IRENA, “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020”, June 2021, op. cit.

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CONCLUSION ON NUCLEAR POWER
VS. RENEWABLE ENERGY
2021 is a key year for addressing climate change and many countries are upping their policies
and measures to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Over the past decade, the power sector
has been at the forefront of decarbonization, as changes in generation can reduce emissions
without impacting the grid system significantly or affecting consumers. The opportunities for
decarbonizing the power sector have been further enhanced by the falling costs of renewableenergy and storage that are undercutting fossil fuels and nuclear generation. Consequently,
country after country is now putting in place plans to switch large parts of their electricity
generation by 2030.
This is, therefore, also a critical time for the nuclear sector globally. In 2019, for the first time,
non-hydro renewables—solar, wind, and mainly biomass—generated more power than nuclear
plants in the world. In 2020, the renewable energy industries have demonstrated a muchgreater resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic than the nuclear sector; and the gap widened,with renewables expanding massively and generating globally 16.5 percent more electricity
than nuclear reactors.
Investment levels for nuclear continue to be many multiples below that of renewables, and theannual deployment and generation levels continue to diverge.
Worse, existing nuclear power plants are increasingly struggling to cope with theircompetitors—now mainly renewables (and natural gas in the U.S.)—in the market. In many
regions, solar and wind come in at guaranteed prices far below operating and maintenancecosts of nuclear reactors.
Unless the process reverses in the next few of years and nuclear power is meaningfully
included in the revised NDCs—it is not currently and it is highly unlikely to happen—thennuclear power will be permanently destined to be found only in niche markets of a handful ofcountries.

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NUCLEAR POWER AND
CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCEINTRODUCTION
For a long time, the interaction between anthropogenic climate change and energy systems
was seen through the lens of decarbonization efforts and the contribution of various energy
transformation technologies to harmful emissions, mainly CO2 .1271 However, as climate change
has accelerated, particularly over recent decades,1272 more attention is now given to examining
the vulnerability of power systems to the intensifying impacts of a changing climate. Recent
studies have generated evidence that energy generation and services are increasingly disrupted
by climate change through the increase in the variability, intensity and predictability of
weather conditions.1273 Consequently, a new focus has emerged in recent years calling for higher
emphasis on adaptation and improving the resiliency of electricity generation, transmission
and distribution systems in the face of climate change.1274 Power-system resilience can bebroadly defined as the ability to cope with, recover from and minimize the impact of various
types of potentially disruptive developments or events.1275
Climate-change effects can impact all types and various parts of electricity systems, albeit withdifferent magnitude and variability depending on the energy source, technology and region.
According to recent research on the impact of climate change on energy systems, coolingbased thermal power plants, including nuclear, are expected to face reductions in their power
output due to reduced streamflow, and warming ambient and streamflow temperatures.1276
Europe and U.S-based thermal power plants have been shown to be particularly vulnerable
to the combined impacts of lower summer river flows and higher river water temperatures.1277
The France case-study below confirms this analysis.
1271 - According to the International Energy Agency’s latest data (March 2021), 40 percent of the total global CO2 emissions are
attributed to the burning of fossil fuels (coal 29%, natural gas 9%, oil 2%) in the power sector. See IEA, “Global energy-related CO2
emissions by secton”, Updated 25 March 2021, see https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-energy-related-co2-emissionsby-sector, accessed 6 May 2021.
1272 - Alejandra Borunda, “Past decade was the hottest on record”, National Geographic, 15 January 2020,see https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-decade-we-finally-woke-up-to-climate-change, accessed 26 April 2021.
1273 - Seleshi G. Yalew, Michelle T. H. van Vliet et al., “Impacts of climate change on energy systems in global and regional scenarios”,

Nature Energy, 3 August 2020, see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0664-z; and Michael T. Craig, Stuart Cohen et al.,“A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States”, Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 98, 1 December 2018, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118306701;
also Roberto Schaeffer, Alexandre Salem Szklo et al., “Energy sector vulnerability to climate change: A review”, Energy, Vol. 38,
1 February 2012, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211007870, all accessed October 2020.
1274 - Elizabeth L. Ratnam, Kenneth G. H. Baldwin et al., “Electricity system resilience in a world of increased climate change andcybersecurity risk”, The Electricity Journal, Vol. 33, Issue 9, 1 November 2020, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/
pii/S1040619020301251; Raquel Figueiredo, Pedro Nunes and Miguel C. Brito, “The resilience of a decarbonized power system toclimate variability: Portuguese case study”, Energy, Vol. 224, 1 June 2021, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0360544221003741, both accessed 26 April 2021.
1275 - Adrian J. Hickford, Simon P. Blainey et al., “Resilience engineering: theory and practice in interdependent infrastructure
systems”, Environment Systems and Decisions, Issue September 2018, see https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-018-9707-4,
accessed 25 October 2020.
1276 - Seleshi G. Yalew, Michelle T. H. van Vliet et al., “Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Systems in Global and Regional
Scenarios”, Nature Energy, Issue October 2020, see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0664-z, accessed 28 May 2021.

1277 - Michelle T. H. van Vliet, John R. Yearsley et al., “Vulnerability of US and European electricity supply to climate change”, Nature
Climate Change, Issue September 2012, see https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1546, accessed 28 May 2021.

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It should be noted that nuclear power plants located on seacoasts can also be vulnerable tohigher than usual temperatures. In 2018, nuclear reactors in Sweden and Finland were forced to
shut down or reduce their power due to temperatures 6–10°C higher than the seasonal average.
In Sweden, a 900-MW reactor at the Ringhals plant was shut down as sea-water temperatures
exceeded 25°C.1278
Costal energy infrastructure could also face challenges as a result of the rising sea level due
to warming climate. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),the 2100 sea level rise is projected to range between 26–98 cm compared to the 1986–2005
level, depending on the warming scenario.1279 Rising sea level could compound climate change
impacts on general infrastructure as it could directly feed into increasing both the physicalhazards and the vulnerabilities. In terms of physical hazards, higher sea level means potentialof storm surge as there is more water to be transported by winds, tides, and waves.1280 As
for increasing vulnerabilities, higher sea level also means higher probability of flooding anderosion.
The operations of thermal power plants, including nuclear, are most frequently vulnerable totemperature variations—higher ambient temperatures lower the thermal efficiency of the plant.
Nuclear power is also affected by variations of the ambient temperature, but since it depends
on water for both primary and secondary cooling, it is especially vulnerable to droughts. The
most vulnerable renewable energy source to climate change is hydropower, which is expected
given the high dependency on water availability.
Wind and solar systems also have their own vulnerabilities to climate change. Wind energy
output is strongly dependent on the wind density at given wind turbine sites. Solar energy
output (particularly solar photovoltaics or PV) is dependent on the cloudiness and ambient
temperature. The efficiency of solar panels decreases as the ambient temperature increases.1281
However, technological solutions such as developing of solar panels that are less sensitive totemperature increase, cooling techniques and/or technology-siting optimization are alreadydeployed strategies by solar energy developers.1282 For example, in India, solar arrays areplaced above irrigation canals, which not only provides a hybrid use of space but increases theefficiency of the panels by cooling and at the same time reduces evaporation of irrigation water(See Figure 57). On the other hand, higher temperatures are projected to generally result in an
increase in the output energy of concentrated solar thermal power plants.1283
1278 - Lefteris Karagiannopoulos, “In hot water: How summer heat has hit Nordic nuclear plants”, Reuters, 1 August 2018,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nordics-nuclearpower-explainer-idUSKBN1KM4ZR, accessed 28 May 2021.
1279 - John A. Church, Peter U. Clark et al., “Chapter 13 – Sea Level Change”, in IPCC, “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science
Basis – Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”, Cambridge University Press, 2013,see https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf, accessed 1 July 2021.
1280 - Thomas J. Wilbanks and Steven Fernandez, “Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities”,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Island Press, 2014, see http://link.springer.com/10.5822/978-1-61091-556-4, accessed 1 July 2021.
1281 - Swapnil Dubey, Jatin Narotam Sarvaiya and Bharath Seshadri, “Temperature Dependent Photovoltaic (PV) Efficiency and Its
Effect on PV Production in the World – A Review”, Energy Procedia, 1 January 2013, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/
pii/S1876610213000829, accessed 26 April 2021.
1282 - Swapnil Dubey, Jatin Narotam Sarvaiya and Bharath Seshadri, “Temperature Dependent Photovoltaic (PV) Efficiency and
Its Effect on PV Production in the World – A Review”, Energy Procedia, Volume 33, 2013; and Linus Idoko, Olimpo Anaya-Lara andAlasdair McDonald, “Enhancing PV modules efficiency and power output using multi-concept cooling technique”, Energy Reports,
November 2018, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484717302962, accessed 27 April 2021.
1283 - Julia A. Crook, Laura A. Jones et al., “Climate change impacts on future photovoltaic and concentrated solar power energy
output”, Energy & Environmental Science, Issue 9, 26 August 2011, see https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2011/ee/
c1ee01495a, accessed 16 May 2021.

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Figure 57 · Solar Panels Over Irrigation Canals in India

1284

Source: Ioannis Kougias et al., 2016

Not only energy sources are vulnerable to climate change and the extreme weather events
caused by it, the transmission grid is one of the weakest links of the electricity value chain.
Because of its vast geographic extent, power transmission grids are at risk of disruption due
to different reasons at different locations. High ambient temperature levels lead to greatertransmission and distribution losses. Researchers have estimated that for every 5°C air
temperature-increase, the capacity of a fully loaded transmission line would be diminishedby an average of 7.5 percent.1285 Climate change could also induce indirect losses on the power
grid—for example, heatwaves can induce wildfires, which could lead to cutting off users.1286
Nuclear power advocates have argued their favored technology would be indispensable in aworld of net-zero emissions as it would provide continuous power generation, compared tothe intermittent solar and wind renewables. For example, the International Atomic Energy
Agency’s (IAEA) Director labeled nuclear power as “present solution” to curbing emissions and“future alternative”.1287 While the assumption is questionable as such (e.g. see France Focus),
examining the bi-directional relationship between nuclear power and climate change deserves
particular attention, especially with the increase in frequency of nuclear power disruptions due
to climatic events. Recent research has shown that the average frequency of climate-induced

1284 - Ioannis Kougias, Katalin Bódis et al., “The potential of water infrastructure to accommodate solar PV systems in Mediterranean
islands”, Solar Energy, July 2016, see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305169602_The_potential_of_water_infrastructure_
to_accommodate_solar_PV_systems_in_Mediterranean_islands, accessed 8 May 2021.
1285 - Jayant A. Sathaye, Larry L. Dale et al., “Estimating impacts of warming temperatures on California’s electricity system”,
Global Environmental Change, Vol 23, Issue 2, April 2013, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378012001458,
accessed 17 January 2021.
1286 - A. Park Williams, John T. Abatzoglou et al., “Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in
California”, Earth’s Future, August 2019, see https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019EF001210; and Renaud Barbero,John. T. Abatzoglou et al., “Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous UnitedStates”, International Journal of Wildland Fire, Published 16 July 2015, see http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=WF15083,
both accessed 27 April 2021.
1287 - Department of Nuclear Energy, “IAEA’s Grossi Calls for Nuclear Power for Net Zero Emissions as Climate ‘Clock is Ticking’”,
IAEA, 31 March 2021, see https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaeas-grossi-calls-for-nuclear-power-for-net-zero-emissions-asclimate-clock-is-ticking, accessed 16 May 2021.

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disruptions has dramatically increased between the 1990s and 2010s.1288 The implications ofsuch notable increase of disruptions can be substantial.

Why climatic disruptions matter?
In recent years, substantial evidence has been generated to link anthropogenic climate change
to extreme weather events.1289 The strength of such links varies from one climatic effect toanother—for example the links between heatwaves and climate change are particularly
strong. According to a Nature piece that provided a meta-analysis of published evidence on theattribution of climate change towards extreme weather events, about two-thirds of studied
extreme weather events were made more likely or more severe by anthropogenic climatechange. As shown in Figure 58, the strongest evidence is on the links of climate change to heat
extremes, followed by droughts and extreme rain or flooding.1290 In the face of the increased
frequency, variability and unpredictability of extreme weather events driven by climate change,
the need to address climate-related risks is more pressing than ever. Given the vital role ofenergy assets and infrastructure in modern day living, it is imperative to assess the impacts
and risks of climate disruption on various energy technologies, including nuclear power.
Figure 58 · Attribution of climate change towards the occurrence of extreme weather events

Attribution of Climate Change towards the Occurrence of Extreme Weather Eventsin Numbers of Extreme Weather Events
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Heat*
Drought
Rain/Flooding
Oceans**Cold/Ice/Snow
StormsMore Severe or More Likely to Occur
Less Severe or Likeky to Occur
No Discernible Human Influence
Insufficient Data/Inconclusive© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

1291

Source: Nature, July 2018

Notes
* Heat Includes heatwaves and wildfires** Oceans includes studies on marine, heat, coral bleaching and marine-ecosystem disruption

The deep Texas freeze that occurred in February 2021, which shut down almost half of thepower generating capacity in the state—all technologies experienced outages—is a strong
1288 - Ali Ahmad, “Increase in frequency of nuclear power outages due to changing climate”, Nature Energy, 5 July 2021,
see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00849-y, accessed 12 August 2021.
1289 - Dim Coumou and Stefan Rahmstorf, “A decade of weather extremes”, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Nature
Climate Change, Issue July 2012, Published 25 March 2012, see https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1452, accessed 27 April 2021.
1290 - Quirin Schiermeier, “Droughts, heatwaves and floods: How to tell when climate change is to blame”, Nature, 30 July 2018,see https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05849-9, accessed 27 April 2021.
1291 - Ibidem.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 reminder of the increasing urgency of integrating strong resilience into energy systems inorder cope with extreme weather events.1292 One of two 1300 MW reactors of the South Texas
plant also automatically shut down after a feedwater pump malfunctioned and was lost for
64 hours.1293 A fragile and disruption-prone power system is bad for citizens, governments andutilities. The impacts of the dramatic power cuts in Texas are still reverberating, with lawsuitsand bankruptcies involving the State’s major power utilities continuing to unfold.1294
Regardless of the power source and the technology applied, projecting to achieve a 100-percent
climate-change resilience is like wanting a 100-percent supply security; both are unattainable
goals. As long as electricity systems depend on large and centralized power stations connectedto the consumers by vast transmission grids, disruptions due to weather events, accidents or
attacks are bound to happen.

OVERVIEW OF CLIMATIC DISRUPTIONS TO THE
OPERATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
The vulnerability of nuclear-power-plant operations to climate change and extreme weather
conditions, as surveyed in the limited available literature, represents an increasingly
serious challenge.1295 The quantitative aspects of such disruptions in terms of the frequency
of unplanned outages of nuclear power plants due to climatic events and the subsequent
generation losses have been shown to be consistently increasing over the years.1296
The discussion of the relationship between nuclear power and climate change in this chapter
focuses on the electricity generation component, i.e. the direct and indirect impacts of climatechange effects on nuclear power plants. It should be noted that climate change may affectother components of the nuclear fuel chain such as uranium mining, nuclear fuel production,
spent fuel reprocessing, waste management and disposal facilities. For example, in 2015, a
decommissioned uranium extraction site in France was flooded by heavy rain.1297 Cases ofuranium mine flooding, which could increase with a changing climate, pose a serious threat ofcontaminating water supplies.1298

1292 - Maria Caspani, “Cold snap leaves one dead, over 4 million without power in Texas”, Reuters, 15 February 2021,
see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-texas-idUSKBN2AF0OK, accessed 27 April 2021.
1293 - University of Texas at Austin, “The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts”, July 2021.
1294 - Gary McWilliams, “Lawsuits or bankruptcies? Long horns of Texas power price dilemma”, Reuters, 11 March 2021,
see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-texas-powerregulator-idUSKBN2B324R, accessed 27 April 2021.
1295 - Kristin Linnerud, Torben K. Mideksa and Gunnar S. Eskeland, “The Impact of Climate Change on Nuclear Power Supply”,

The Energy Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2011, see http://www.jstor.org/stable/41323396, accessed 19 October 2020; and Sarah M. Jordaan,
Afreen Siddiqi et al., “The Climate Vulnerabilities of Global Nuclear Power”, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 19, Issue 4,1 November 2019, see https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00527, accessed 24 October 2020.
1296 - Ali Ahmad, “Increase in frequency of nuclear power outages due to changing climate”, 5 July 2021, Nature Energy, op. cit.
1297 - Aria, “Débordement d’un bassin d’effluents dans une mine d’uranium”, Analysis, Research and Information on Accidents
Database, Bureau for Analysis of Industrial Risks and Pollutions, 13 September 2015 (in French), see https://www.aria.developpementdurable.gouv.fr/accident/49416/, accessed 4 May 2021.
1298 - Megan Kelly, “Uranium Mine Flooding Near Grand Canyon”, Grand Canyon Trust, 5 April 2021,
see https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/uranium-mine-flooding-near-grand-canyon, accessed 27 April 2021.

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Figure 59 · Pathways of Climate-Induced Disruptions of the Operation of Nuclear Power Plants

Source: Ali Ahmad, Nature Energy, July 2021

As a thermal source of energy, the most frequently cited climatic risk to nuclear reactors is theincrease in the ambient temperature, which will affect the reactor’s cooling quality and reduce
its thermal efficiency.1299 However, different climatic events can disrupt the operations of a
nuclear reactor in different ways, as shown in Figure 59. Operating a nuclear reactor is a moredelicate process compared to operating other, fossil fuel-based thermal power plants due to thestringent safety requirements to ramp up or down power levels, monitoring and regulations.
As shown in Figure 59, climate change disrupts the operations of nuclear power plants throughtwo main pathways. The first is the thermal pathway, which includes all the outages that result
from the limitation on evacuating the thermal power generated within the reactor, triggering
either reduced power output or a full outage at zero capacity.1300 Thermal disruptions relate to
the ambient temperature and availability of water. Outages driven by droughts and heatwaves
are classified as thermal outages. A relatively high increase in the temperature of the inlet
cooling water has two impacts on operating nuclear reactors: (1) it lowers the overall thermal
efficiency of the power plant; and (2) it may force the reactor to reduce its load (partially or
fully) due to the condenser pressure reaching its maximum value.1301 Additionally, the outlet
1299 - Kristin Linnerud, Torben K. Mideksa and Gunnar S. Eskeland, “The Impact of Climate Change on Nuclear Power Supply”,
The Energy Journal, 2011, op. cit.
1300 - According to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) definition, an outage is when the reactor’s actual power islower than the reference unit power for a period of time. Consequently, outages can be partial (power de-rating) or full (shutdowns).
See https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/Glossary.aspx.
1301 - Sami I. Attia, “The influence of condenser cooling water temperature on the thermal efficiency of a nuclear power
plant”, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Vol. 80, June 2015, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306454915000985,
accessed 24 October 2020.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 cooling-water temperature is generally subjected to regulatory limits in order to protect theriver or sea ecology, and to respect industrial and drinking water conditions.1302
Nuclear plants, as well as most large fossil power plants, produce heat that is converted toelectricity using a steam turbine. The turbine allows heat to be exchanged between a hot
source (the reactor core) and a cold sink (usually a river or the sea). In the process, the hot
source is cooled and thermal energy is transferred to the cold sink.
The amount of thermal energy that can be transferred to a river and, to a lesser degree, tothe sea is limited because excessive water temperature can damage the ecosystem, reduce theefficiency of other plants using the same cold sink and deteriorate the conditions to produce
drinking water.1303 This specific consideration is mainly an issue in river heat sinks with nuclear
and coal-fired power plants, which together are responsible for the majority of the “thermal
pollution” from thermoelectric power plants worldwide.1304
The second is the storm pathway, which includes all the outages triggered by violent storms likehurricanes or typhoons, often accompanied by floods, lightning, etc. As shown in Figure 59,
the disruptions related to stormy weather conditions particularly impact the electrical power
supply systems at the power plant. For example, violent lightning storms have disrupted theoperations of nuclear reactors in the past causing significant damage to the electrical systemsof the plants, including the nearby grid substation.1305 For example, the Browns Ferry nuclear
plant in northern Alabama, U.S., has been reported to suffer from frequent lightning strikes,
which required “considerable equipment replacement and repair”.1306
In Europe, and particularly in France, which hosts over half of European nuclear reactors,
temperature extremes are the main contributor to climatic disruptions.1307 Over the past two
decades, heatwaves have forced shutdown or curtailment of nuclear power reactors in Europe,
the largest of which were observed in 2003, 2006, 2015 and 2018.1308 On the other hand, nuclear

1302 - In France, the temperature of water for human consumption is required to be below 25°C.
1303 - In France, it is normally forbidden to produce water for human consumption from resources hotter than 25°C, this is due to theaccelerated development of pathogens and reduced chlorine stability above this threshold. See French Republic, “Annexe I – Limiteset Références de Qualité des Eaux Destinées à la Consommation Humaine, à l’Exclusion des Eaux Conditionnées”, Annex to “Arrêté
du 11 Janvier 2007 relatif aux limites et références de qualité des eaux brutes et des eaux destinées à la consummation humaines
mentionnées aux articles R. 1321-2, R. 1321-3, R.1321-7 et E. 1321-38 du code de la santé publique”, Modified 4 August 2017 (in French),see https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI000035438980/2020-08-07/, accessed 19 August 2021.
1304 - Catherine Elizabeth Raptis, Michelle T. H. van Vliet and Stefan Pfister, “Global thermal pollution of rivers from thermoelectric
power plants”, Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, N. 10, October 2016, see https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/104011,
accessed 1 July 2021.
1305 - Paul Boughton, “Solving the lightning strike problem at nuclear power plant”, Engineer Live, 21 February 2013,see https://www.engineerlive.com/content/solving-lightning-strike-problem-nuclear-power-plant, accessed 27 April 2021.
1306 - Ibidem
1307 - Ali Ahmad, “Increase in Frequency of Nuclear Power Outages Due to Changing Climate”, Nature Energy, July 2021, op. cit.
1308 - The Guardian, “Heatwave hits French power production”, 12 August 2003,
see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/12/france.nuclear;and Juliette Jowit and Javier Espinoza, “Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants”, The Guardian, 29 July 2006,
see http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/30/energy.weather;also Craig Morris, “How the European power sector copes during the heat wave”, Energy Transition, 26 August 2015,see https://energytransition.org/2015/08/european-power-sector-heat-wave/;and Mathieu Rosemain and Simon Carraud, “France’s EDF halts four nuclear reactors due to heatwave”, Reuters, 4 August 2018,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-weather-idUSKBN1KP0ES, all accessed 28 April 2021.

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power plants in North America and East Asia, are particularly susceptible to suffer from
cyclone activity.1309

Indirect climatic disruptions
Besides the direct effects of climate change and the extreme weather conditions that arehighlighted above, climate change could also induce disruptions of nuclear power plants (andother power sources) through an array of indirect causes.
Table 17 lists some of the reported indirect climatic effects that have been contributing
causes of unplanned outages of nuclear reactors worldwide. Higher-than-usual temperatures
can alter the heat-sink environment, triggering new challenges. For example, in March 2021,
the operation of two South Korean reactors was halted due to the spreading of jellyfish-likeorganisms, which can block the inlet cooling-water channel of the reactors.1310 These organisms
typically appear in numbers in June, but they appeared two months earlier due to earlier-thannormal warm currents.1311 In fact, studies have shown that jellyfish tend to flourish in warmer
waters under the effect of climate change.1312
Another example of the impact of indirect effects of climate change is the recurrence of
wildfires. Clearly wildfires can happen due to non-climatic reasons, but usually hotter anddrier weather conditions are major contributing factors.1313 Wildfires can impact nuclear power
plant operations by cutting off power supply—reactors need electricity to operate vital safetyrelated functions like core-cooling—(sometimes demand is cut preemptively 1314) or throughthe need to evacuate plant personnel. In May 2014, the San Onofre nuclear power plant in
California was shut down and its personnel evacuated as a precautionary measure in the faceof nearby wildfires.1315

1309 - Steven Mufson, “3 nuclear power reactors shut down during Hurricane Sandy”, The Washington Post, 30 October 2012,see https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/3-nuclear-power-reactors-shut-down-during-sandy/2012/10/30/7ddd3a9422b6-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_story.html; and Suzanne Goldenberg, “Hurricane Irene shuts down US nuclear reactors”, The Guardian ,28 August 2011, see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/28/hurricane-iren-shuts-nuclear-reactor; also David R Baker, “Florida
Nuclear Plants Ready to Shut Down as Dorian Threat Looms”, Bloomberg, 31 August 2019, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2019-08-31/florida-nuclear-plants-ready-to-shut-down-as-dorian-threat-looms, all accessed 28 April 2021.
1310 - Heesu Lee and Aaron Clark, “Tiny Sea Creatures Plague South Korean Nuclear Plant Operations”, Bloomberg, 7 April 2021,
see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/jellyfish-like-organisms-halt-two-south-korean-nuclear-reactors,
accessed 28 April 2021.
1311 - Ibidem.
1312 - Christopher Philip Lynam, Martin K.S. Lilley et al., “Have jellyfish in the Irish Sea benefited from climate change
and overfishing?”, Global Change Biology, 2011, see https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02352.x,
accessed 24 October 2020; and Martin J. Attrill, Jade Wright and Martin Edwards, “Climate-related increases in jellyfish frequency
suggest a more gelatinous future for the North Sea”, Limnology and Oceanography, 2007, see https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi/abs/10.4319/lo.2007.52.1.0480, both accessed 24 October 2020.
1313 - Samuel Jonson Sutanto, Claudia Vitolo et al., “Heatwaves, droughts, and fires: Exploring compound and cascading dry hazards
at the pan-European scale”, Environment International, Vol. 134, January 2020, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0160412019308530, accessed 28 April 2021.
1314 - Mark Chediak, John Gittelson and David R. Baker, “PG&E Warns of Power Cuts to 466,000 Customers To Prevent Fires”,

Bloomberg, 24 October 2020, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-24/pg-e-warns-of-power-cuts-to-466-000customers-to-prevent-fires, accessed 24 October 2020.
1315 - Power Engineering International, “Wildfires prompt evacuation of San Onofre Nuclear plant”, 15 May 2014,see https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/wildfires-prompt-evacuation-of-san-onofre-nuclear-plant/, accessed 28 April 2021.

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Table 17 – Selection of Indirect Climate-Driven Effects Disrupting Nuclear Power Plant Operation
EffectImpactJellyfish proliferation

Large numbers of jellyfish can block
the inlet cooling water channel

Wildfire evacuation

Wildfires could either require evacuation of nuclear
plant’s personnel or cut off power supply

Flooding debris

Floods can bring debris closer to the inlet coolingwater channel and block it

Sea level rise

Increase intensity and height of storms
and storm surge
Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

CASE STUDY FRANCEWith approximately two thirds of its electrical energy from nuclear reactors, France is uniquelydependent on nuclear power plants. As discussed in the previous section, this dependence canbecome a challenge when weather conditions, such as extreme heat or drought, make it harderto safely and reliably operate reactors.
Although weather-related disruptions of nuclear power production were reported in France
as early as 19761316, the general public became familiar with this risk after the massive
2003-heatwave. In August 2003, high temperatures caused the unavailability of 10 to 15 GWof the 63 GW of nuclear power then installed in France.1317 This substantial drop in availability,
combined with poor performance from other production such as fossil and hydroelectricity
and an increased number of incidents on the transportation and distribution networks, brought
the supply-demand equilibrium close the brink, resulting in a situation a French Senate report
called a “near-miss catastrophe”.1318 The report states:
Thus, due to environmental constraints as stipulated in the discharge regulations, a potential
production shortcoming of up to 16,000 MW has been identified for the week of 18 to
24 August. Over the period 4–24 August, a 4-percent reduction in nuclear energy production
has been registered.1319

1316 - Callendar, “Nucléaire et climat : Les causes d’indisponibilités climatiques”, Forthcoming.
1317 - French Senate, “La France et les Français face à la canicule : les leçons d’une crise—Rapport d’information n°195 (2003-2004)”,
Filed 3 February 2004 (in French), see https://www.senat.fr/rap/r03-195/r03-195.html, accessed 29 April 2021.
1318 - Ibidem.
1319 - Ibidem.

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UNITED KINGDOMNETHERLANDS

North Sea

GERMANY

Figure 60 · Nuclear Power Plant Sites in France with Open and Closed Cooling Systems

Gravelines
BELGIUM
Lille

Penly

ChannelChooz

PaluelLUXEMBOURG

Flamanville
Me

Rouen

use

Cattenom
Metz

PARIS

Orléans

Fessenheim

DampierreSaint-Laurent Loire
Tours

NantesChinonSWITZERLAND

BellevillePoitiers

Civaux
Vie

Gi
ro

nn

Bugey
e

e
nd

Atlantic
Ocean

Ga
ro
e
nn

GolfechITALY

Tricastin

Cruas

Ga
ro
n

ne

100 km

Lyon

Rhône

BordeauxôneRh

Saint-AlbanBlayais0

Rhine

RennesStrasbourg

Nogent

elle
os
M

Se
ine

SPAIN

Marseille
Mediterranean Sea

Capacity

StatusCooling System

900 MW

OperatingOpen Marine System

1300 MW

Under construction

Open River System

1450 MW

ClosedClosed River System(with cooling towers)

1650 MW© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, based on EDF, RTE, 2021

The 2003 heatwave was a particularly severe example of the impact weather can have on
nuclear power, but not an isolated one. Recent incidents, including the unavailability of
three out of four 900 MW Blayais reactors in the Bordeaux region on the Atlantic coast in
early March 2021 due to an accumulation of foreign matter disabling their pumping stations

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 (fouling)1320; a one‑month shutdown of the two 1450 MW units in Chooz at the Belgian bordercaused by the low level of the Meuse river in August–September 20201321 and the shutdown ofboth 1300 MW units of Golfech during the heatwave of July 20191322, made it clear that weather
can repeatedly bring French nuclear plants to a complete standstill.
Amongst the 56 operating light water reactors, there are 26 reactors with open cooling systems,of which 14 on the seashore and 12 on rivers, and 30 closed systems with cooling towers (all on
rivers), (see Figure 60).

Climate-induced Impact on
Nuclear Generation in France Since 2015
Duration and production lost
In 2020, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO), RTE, commissioned a study toassess the impact of weather on nuclear power production between 2015 and 20201323 . This
study was based on data on planned and unplanned unavailability disclosed by EDF under the2011 European Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT),available on EDF’s transparency platform1324 .
For the purpose of the RTE study, “climate-induced unavailability” was defined as a shutdown
or derating of a reactor occurring when a weather phenomenon prevents the continuationof normal operation. This category does not exist in EDF’s disclosed data but climateinduced unavailabilities and their probable cause can be identified through natural language
processing1325 of EDF’s messages crossed with meteorological and hydrological data—for
instance, a shutdown due to “environmental issues” during a heatwave is very likely to becaused by temperature. The results were validated using independent sources including EDF’s
communication and the IAEA’s Operating Experience reports1326.

1320 - EDF, “Reconnexion de l’unité de production n°1 de la centrale nucléaire du Blayais”, 2 March 2021 (in French),see https://www.edf.fr/groupe-edf/nos-energies/carte-de-nos-implantations-industrielles-en-france/centrale-nucleaire-du-blayais/
actualites/reconnexion-de-l-unite-de-production-ndeg1-de-la-centrale-nucleaire-du-blayais, accessed 13 August 2021.
1321 - EDF, “Redémarrage de l’unité de production n°2 de la centrale de Chooz”, 4 October 2020 (in French),see https://www.edf.fr/groupe-edf/nos-energies/carte-de-nos-implantations-industrielles-en-france/centrale-nucleaire-de-chooz/
actualites/redemarrage-de-l-unite-de-production-ndeg2-de-la-centrale-de-chooz, accessed 15 August 2021.
1322 - EDF, “Rapport environnemental annuel relatif aux installations nucléaires du Centre Nucléaire de Production d’Electricité deGolfech 2019”, 2020 (in French), p. 38, see https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/producteur-industriel/carte-desimplantations/centrale-golfech/actualites/Juillet%202020/rase_2019_avec_annexes_compressed.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1323 - Working Group ‘référentiel climatique’, “Représentation des effets du climat sur le système électrique – Document de cadrage
n°4 : Modélisation et évolution de la disponibilité de la production électrique d’origine nucléaire et thermique”, Groupe de travail‘référentiel climatique’, RTE, 2021 (in French), p. 13, see https://www.concerte.fr/system/files/u12200/2021-03-10-GT_climat_4_
nucleaire_v1-min.pdf, accessed 15 August 2021.
1324 - EDF, “List of Outages and Messages”, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/who-we-are/activities/optimisation-and-trading/list-of-outages-and-messages/messages-list.
1325 - Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of data science that focuses on programing computers to automatically process
and analyze large amounts of text.
1326 - IAEA, “Operating Experience with Nuclear Power Stations in Member States—2019 Edition”, 50th Edition, 2019,see https://www.iaea.org/publications/13575/operating-experience-with-nuclear-power-stations-in-member-states,
accessed 19 May 2021.

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According to the RTE study, weather was responsible for 3,994 hours of outages at zero
power—a loss of 166 reactor-days of production—and 4,045 hours of derating between 2015
and 2020 (See Figure 61). Climate-induced unavailabilities occurred every year: 2016 was theleast affected with just 18 deratings while 2018 was the worst year with 23 full outages and
103 deratings. Over the time period, 26 reactors were affected at least once (including both
Fessenheim reactors) and 12 were shutdown (including one Fessenheim unit) at some point.
Figure 61 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
Type and Duration of Unavailabilities, in Hours
Hours
2500

Partial Unavailability
Total Unavailability

2000

Equivalent Total Unavailability
1500© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

1000

500

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

0

Source: REMIT, compiled by Callendar, 2021

Climate-induced unavailability reduced production by 8.5 TWh over the course of the six
years, 1.4 TWh per year on average. This is approximately 0.4 percent of French annual nuclear
production, slightly higher than the figures usually reported by EDF.1327 The discrepancy may
be explained by particularly high nuclear generation losses due to climatic impacts in 2020
when approximately 3 TWh fell victim to drought or heat, the highest level since 2003.1328(See Figure 62).

1327 - For instance in 2020, “EDF points out that heat has a very limited impact on electricity generation: on average only 0.25% of
the fleet’s annual production over the last 20 years” as reported in Vincent Collen, “Canicule, sécheresse : le parc nucléaire contraint
de s’adapter”, Les Echos, 8 August 2020 (in French), see https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/caniculesecheresse-le-parc-nucleaire-contraint-de-sadapter-1229316, accessed 16 August 2021.
1328 - Leila Fernández Thévoz, “Heatwave impact on French nuclear output doubles to 3 TWh”, Montel, 24 February 2021,
see https://www.montelnews.com/fr/story/heatwave-impact-on-french-nuclear-output-doubles-to-3-twh/1198233,
accessed 16 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 320

Figure 62 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Year

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
in GWh by Most Probable Cause and Year
Flowrate
6,374

Temperature
1,077

Mixed
827

Production Losses
by Cause and Year

2015
679

2016
103

2017

2020

602

3,037

2018
2019

2,254

1,604

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: REMIT, compiled by Callendar, 2021

Table 18 – Causes for Outages and Generation Reductions at French Nuclear Fleet in 2019
Causes

Production Impacts

Other (mostly refueling and maintenance outages)

117.0 TWhModulation (production reduction to save fuel)28.5 TWh

BreakdownTechnical Failures

12.0 TWh

Planned-outage extensions

12.0 TWh

Teil Earthquake*

2.3 TWh

Weather-related Outages

1.4 TWh

Total

173.2 TWh
Sources: RTE, 20211329

Notes:* On 11 November 2019, an earthquake close to the town of Teil triggered the procedure “shutdown for verification” at the Cruas nuclear power plant. The
four 900-MW reactors remained offline for several weeks.

While production losses caused by climate-induced unavailability may appear limited incomparison to other unplanned outages, as shown in Table 18, RTE points out that they can be
more disruptive as they are less easy to forecast and often concentrated over a relatively shortperiod of the year. In other words, while the cumulated impact on production appears small,1329 - Working Group “référentiel climatique”, “Document de cadrage n°4 : Modélisation et évolution de la disponibilité de la
production électrique d’origine nucléaire et thermique”, Groupe de travail ‘référentiel climatique’, RTE, 2021 (in French), p. 13,
see https://www.concerte.fr/system/files/u12200/2021-03-10-GT_climat_4_nucleaire_v1-min.pdf, accessed 19 August 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

the impacted share of installed capacity can be more significant. During the 2019 heatwave,
for example, the capacity unavailable due to extreme temperature and drought simultaneously
impacted up to nine reactors or 6.2 GW, approximately 10 percent of the installed nuclear
capacity. This situation had a significant impact on the supply-demand balance with spot
electricity prices in France quickly climbing from their normal range in summer (30–50€/
MWh) to above 70€/MWh1330.

Most Affected Periods of the Year
From 2015 to 2020, climate-induced unavailabilities were concentrated between Julyand November, and half of the production losses occurred in the September months (seeFigure 63). This is partly due to the Chooz site’s 28-day full unavailability in September 2020,
but September remains the most affected month even when 2020 is removed.
This result was somewhat unexpected as nuclear plant unavailability are typically reported in
the general medias in relation to mid-summer heatwaves. Multiple reasons come together tomake September the most exposed month:ɆɆ Hydrological conditions. On average, September is the month with the lowest flow on
the Rhône and Meuse rivers, which are used to cool some of the most drought-vulnerable
nuclear plants in France.
ɆɆ Meteorological conditions. Water temperature remains high due to river inertia andrelatively high air temperature. Late heatwaves, like in 2020 during the third week of
September, are also becoming more likely with climate change.
ɆɆ Regulatory reasons. Some plants have different thresholds for thermal discharge in winterand in summer; most noticeably the Bugey site with four 900-MW reactors switches fromsummer to winter regulation on 15 September which frequently cause unavailability during
the second half of the month as the maximum water temperature allowed downstream is
reduced by 2°C, from 26°C to 24°C.
ɆɆ Operational reasons. As demand decreases, reactors are often halted in July and August
for maintenance or to delay refueling outages, which makes it easier for the remaining
reactors to operate under adverse weather conditions by reducing the overall need forwater withdrawal and thermal discharge; conversely the probability of climate-induced
unavailabilities mechanically increases when load factors increase at the end of thesummer.
Besides September with about half of the incidences in the 2015–2020 period, the most affected
months were August and July (with 22 percent and 16 percent of electricity production losses
respectively). Losses remain significant in October (11 percent) with a tail-end in November(2 percent).

1330 - Thibault Laconde, “The Impact of Climate Change on Nuclear Supply”, Callendar, presented at Montel, “French Energy Day”,
Webinar, 15 April 2021.

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Figure 63 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Month

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
in GWh by Most Probable Cause and Month
Flowrate
6,374

Temperature
1,077

Mixed
827

Production Losses
by Cause in Most
Exposed Months
November
156

July

October

1,330

943

AugustSeptember

1,736

4,114

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: REMIT, compiled by Callendar, 2021

Most Affected Power Plants
The RTE analysis did not identify any climate-induced unavailability for Gravelines, Penly,
Paluel and Flamanville, the four French nuclear plant located on the seacoast, although EDF
mentions at least one such event in its financial reporting.1331
Among the fourteen nuclear plants located inland,1332 nine experienced climatic unavailability
between 2015 and 2020. The two Fessenheim reactors, closed in 2020, were also affected in thepast. (See Figure 64).
Three plants lost more than 1 TWh of production: Chooz (4.4 TWh), Saint Alban (2 TWh) andBugey (1.1 TWh). The Saint Alban plant is the only one to have experienced climate-induced
unavailabilities every year since 2015. The Bugey plant experienced unavailabilities every year
except in 2020 when its two most vulnerable reactors (Bugey-2 and Bugey-3 equipped withonce-through cooling systems) were both offline for refueling and maintenance during thesummer. (See Figure 65).

1331 - EDF, “Document d’enregistrement universel 2019”, Annual Financial Report, March 2021 (in French), p. 141,
see https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/espaces-dedies/espace-finance-fr/informations-financieres/informationsreglementees/urd/edf-urd-rapport-financier-annuel-2019-fr-3.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1332 - Although it is located on the Gironde estuary and resembles coastal plants in some aspects (for example the influence ofwave and tide), Blayais is regarded here as an inland plant as the estuary is hotter than the sea, which causes frequent heat-induced
unavailabilities.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 323

Figure 64 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants per Cause and Site

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
in GWh per Most Probable Cause and Site
Flowrate
6,374

Temperature
1,077

Mixed
827

Production Losses
by Cause and Site

Belleville
Dampierre 3
7

BlayaisCattenom70

Tricastin

115

219

Golfech
377

Chooz

Bugey

4,395

1,094

St Alban© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

1,998

Source: REMIT, compiled by Callendar, 2021

Figure 65 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants by Cause and Year

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
in GWh per Year and Site

2019
1,604

2018
2,254

2020

2017

3,037

602

2016
103

2015
679

Production Losses
per Year and Site

Belleville
Dampierre 3
7

BlayaisCattenom70

Tricastin219

115

Golfech
377

Chooz

Bugey

4,395

1,094

St Alban
1,998© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Source: REMIT, compiled by Callendar, 2021

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Figure 66 shows the maximum simultaneous unavailable capacity for each year of the 2015–2020 period, indicating their cause.
Figure 66 · Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Plants – Maximum Unavailabilities

Climate Related Unavailabilities of French Nuclear Power Plants 2015–2020
Maximum Simultaneous Unavailable Capacity
in GW per Year per Cause

GW
6

5

4
Not Defined*
3

Mixed
Temperature
Flowrate

2

1

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

0

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: RTE and Callendar, 2021

Note: *No classification provided.

Causes of Climate-Induced Unavailabilities in France
Weather-related disruptions of nuclear power production are often presented as a result of
extreme temperatures during summer heatwaves. Empirical data call this common narrative
into question and suggest more complex phenomena are at play. The disruptions that happened
during the past six years can be classified into three broad categories: summer type (caused bytemperature), autumn type (caused by low water flow) and winter type (caused by floods orstorms).

Summer-Type Disruptions: Correlated with Heat Waves, Short and Widespread
Even though it is not the most important cause of disruption in terms of energy loss, heatwaves
can lead to power plant outages. During sustained periods of heat, the temperature of thewater used to cool reactors and turbines increases, making it more and more difficult for a
power plant to comply with the regulation on thermal discharge. In extreme cases, indoor air
temperature could also become a threat for equipment reliability and performance.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Thermal discharge regulations for French nuclear plants
In France, the regulation of thermal discharge applicable to nuclear plants is set on a case-bycase basis by a decision of the Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire)
sanctioned by a decree from the Minister in charge of energy. It usually takes two or more of
the following forms:1333
ɆɆ A maximum downstream temperature after discharged cooling water is mixed with thewater body: this type of limit applies to all inland plants with the notable exception of thefour sites (Belleville, Chinon, Dampierre, Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux) along the Loire river.
The regulation applicable to Bugey was mentioned earlier, Cruas, Golfech, Nogent andTricastin provide a simpler case with a downstream water temperature limited to 28°C at
any time in the year.
ɆɆ A maximum increase of temperature between upstream and downstream after coolingwater is mixed: this type of limit is used for inland plants frequently with different
thresholds depending on the season or hydrological conditions. For example, the Nogent
plant, upstream of Paris, is permitted to warm the Seine River by 3°C and up to 4°C
when the flow rate is below 20 m3/s. By contrast, the Civaux plant is allowed to warm theVienne River only by 2°C and no additional warming at all is allowed should the river
upstream temperature reach 25°C.
ɆɆ A maximum discharge temperature at the point where cooling water is returned to thewater body: this type of limit is used mostly for coastal plants and Blayais. The latter, forexample, cannot discharge water hotter than 30°C from 16 October to 15 May and 36.5°C
from 16 May to 15 October.
In addition, the regulation applicable to some plants contains more lax thresholds that can beused when normal limits cannot be met if the grid operator requires the plant to continue its
operation to ensure the security of power supply. In such a case, Golfech, for example, could
be allowed to operate with a downstream temperature of up to 30°C (instead of 28°C) but
maximum warming between up- and downstream would be reduced to 1.25°C (instead of 1.5°C
in summer and 2°C in winter).
Even though the regulation of thermal discharges by nuclear plants is loosely based on a1978 European Directive1334 and presents some commonalities with the regulation applicableto other industrial installations using natural water bodies for cooling, the applied case-bycase approach results in a patchwork of thresholds that make it difficult to comprehend why aspecific plant had to reduce output or shut down in the past or to forecast future outages.

1333 - Callendar, “Réglementation des rejets et débits pour les centrales nucléaires françaises”, Updated 17 November 2020 (in French),see http://callendar.climint.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Reglementation.html.
1334 - European Parliament and Council of the European Union, “Directive 2006/44/EC of 6 September 2006 on the quality of fresh
waters needing protection or improvement in order to support fish life”, codified September 2006, Official Journal of the European
Union, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:264:0020:0031:EN:PDF; and Council of the European
Union, “Council Directive 78/659/EEC of 18 July 1978 on the quality of fresh waters needing protection or improvement in order tosupport fish life”, Official Journal of the European Communities, No. L 22/1, 14 August 1978.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Outages caused by upstream water temperature
During heatwaves, thermal discharge regulations can trigger outages because watertemperatures increase with air temperature making it more difficult for nuclear plants tocomply with maximum temperature at the discharge point or downstream.
Two slightly different cases exist depending on the cooling system used. Eleven of the 14 inland
nuclear plants operating in France are equipped with closed-loop cooling systems, including
Bugey which is the only installation with mixed cooling systems: Bugey-4 and -5 use closedloop while Bugey-2 and -3 use once-through cooling.
With closed-loop cooling, most of the waste heat from the turbine is transferred to theatmosphere through evaporation in a cooling tower. As a result, the impact of the reactor on thetemperature of the water body used for cooling is limited, usually less than 0.5°C. This residual
warming occurs as water is drained from the cooling circuit to control the concentration inmineral and biological impurities.
As reactors equipped with closed-loop cooling contribute moderately to river temperature,outages usually happen when the upstream temperature is already higher or very close to the
maximum temperature allowed downstream. Golfech with two 1300 MW units, along theGaronne river, is the plant most commonly affected by this type of outage: for example, in
2019, from 23–29 July and twice for very short durations in 2020, for 18 hours on 31 July and
1 August and 15 hours on 12 and 13 August.
Coastal plants as well as Blayais, Tricastin (also 4 x 900 MW), Saint-Alban (2 x 1300 MW) andBugey-2 and -3 use once-through cooling systems. With once-through cooling, water used tocool the turbine is returned directly into the sea or river where it came from. As a result, all thewaste thermal energy from the plant is transferred to the water body, and the water is obviously
significantly warmer when it is discharged than when it is withdrawn. For example, at Blayais,
the increase of water temperature between withdrawal and discharge is on average 8–10°C.1335
As a result, outages can occur even when the water temperature is significantly lower than thetemperature allowed at discharge or downstream: At Blayais, deratings due to excessive watertemperature occurred at least 19 times since 2015—in August 2018, July 2019 and August 2020.

Impact of Air Temperature
Many electrical or electronic devices that are important for the safety of a nuclear installation
are vulnerable to extreme heat. For example, the reliable operation of emergency generatorsand pumps can be impaired by excessive temperatures. In case of extreme heat, nuclear plant
operation could then be disrupted independently of water temperature.
Heat sensitive equipment usually has one or two temperature thresholds:
ɆɆ A nominal temperature limit (“température de disponibilité”) under which they canoperate continuously with normal performance;

1335 - EDF, “Rapport environnemental annuel relatif aux installations nucléaires du Centre Nucléaire de Production d’Électricité
du Blayais”, 2019 (in French), p. 42, see https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/producteur-industriel/carte-desimplantations/centrale-blayais/surete-et-environnement/rapport_enviro_2019_vdef.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.

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ɆɆ An extreme temperature limit (“température exceptionnelle de tenue des matériels”),
higher than the nominal temperature, under which equipment can operate for a limited
duration, possibly with impact on their lifespan.

Excessive Indoor Temperatures at Fessenheim During the 2003 Heatwave
In 2003, some electronic equipment at the Fessenheim nuclear plant was qualified tooperate only below 50°C. On 31 July 2003, the temperature inside the reactor buildings
reached 48.2°C, approaching the authorized temperature limit for the first time in
French nuclear history.
To reduce the indoor temperature and avoid a shutdown, the operator decided to use
the containment spray system (EAS) of the reactors. This system is designed to be
used in the event of an accident to spray water inside the concrete containment of thereactor to reduce pressure and temperature and to trap radioactive iodine. The use of
EAS failed to reduce the temperature but may have helped contain it below the 50°C
limit. On 4 August 2003, when the spraying stopped, the temperature inside the building
was at 48.7°C.1336 The containment was also sprayed from the outside (see Figure 67).
Figure 67 · The containment of one of the Fessenheim reactors is
sprayed with water to cool it down during the heatwave in 2003

1337

Source: France 2, via INA, 4 August 2003.

EDF was criticized for using an emergency system in this situation and the image ofFessenheim reactors being sprayed also from the outside was arguably a defining
moment in the realization that French nuclear plants may be vulnerable to increasingheat under climate change conditions.

1336 - Le Monde, “Polémique autour de l’aspersion de la centrale de Fessenheim”, 5 August 2003 (in French), see https://www.
lemonde.fr/archives/article/2003/08/05/polemique-autour-de-l-aspersion-de-la-centrale-de-fessenheim_329783_1819218.html,
accessed 16 August 2021.
1337 - Angela Bolis, “C’était en 2003 : la centrale de Fessenheim arrosée”, Terraeco, 10 June 2011 (in French),see https://www.terraeco.net/C-etait-en-2003-la-centrale-de,17816.html, accessed 7 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Should indoor temperature reach these levels the plant would have to shut down out of
precaution. There is no known example of such shutdown in France, but the risk appears
credible under warming climatic conditions, as nearly happened in 2003 at Fessenheim(see box above). In addition, EDF’s temperature models have been shown to be fallible.
During the 2019 heatwave, the assumptions for maximum outside air temperature were
exceeded for three nuclear plants (Gravelines, Paluel, Penly), and in other plants, measured
indoor temperatures were significantly higher than those anticipated by EDF’s building
models, despite the outside air temperature being lower and some heat-generating equipment(e.g. certain electrical devices) being shut down.1338

Key characteristics of summer outages
Summer-type outages are caused by high temperatures; other factors, such as river flow, play
no or minor roles. This leads to some specific characteristics of summer-type outages:
ɆɆ They are short, as they require unusually high temperatures that currently rarely persist
for more than one week. As river temperatures have some inertia, outages usually start
three to five days after the beginning of the heatwave and cease when temperature
decreases, typically lasting a few hours to a few days.
ɆɆ They happen in a very limited timeframe, as they are concentrated around the hottest
weeks of the year, usually during the second half of July and the first half of August. This
characteristic is often used to dismiss the issue as this is a period of low demand forelectricity in France.1339
ɆɆ They are highly correlated between plants, as heatwaves frequently hit large parts of theFrench territory simultaneously. As a result, the operation of multiple power plants can be
disrupted simultaneously, even if they are distant from each other and do not share thesame cold sink.
ɆɆ All things being equal, they are virtually certain to occur more frequently. While river
flow or extreme weather events may in some cases evolve positively with climate change,
there is little doubt that summer temperatures will increase significantly in the coming
decades leading to more frequent and longer summer outages. This risk can however be
reduced by regulatory changes of the downstream temperature limits (at the cost of ahigher environmental risk).

Autumn-type Disruptions: Mostly Drought-driven, Long but Localized
As outlined before, weather-related outages are more common in September when heat isreceding than during the summer and are still frequent in October and November. These
autumnal outages are not caused by temperature but by river flow.

1338 - IRSN, “Avis IRSN n°2020-00010—Réacteurs électronucléaires – EDF – Retour d’expérience de la canicule de l’été 2019”,
Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, 23 January 2020 (in French), see https://www.irsn.fr/FR/expertise/avis/2020/
Documents/janvier/Avis-IRSN-2020-00010_version-commentee_04032020.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1339 - The lowest load day in the summer is around 30 GW or half of the installed nuclear capacity, while the historic winter peakexceeds 100 GW.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 River flow rates: a minor constraint for French inland nuclear plants
With the exception of Chooz, technical and regulatory limits depending on the river flowrate
have no direct impact on French nuclear plant availability.
Nuclear plants with once-through cooling systems need large quantities of water, e.g. 42 m3/s
per reactor at Tricastin and Bugey-2 and -3 and 57 m3/s for Saint-Alban.1340 This translates
into a minimum river flowrate of 84, 114 and 168 m3/s for Bugey, Saint-Alban and Tricastin,
respectively, at full capacity. Such volumes are provided by the Rhône River with reasonablemargins: for Bugey (the most upstream plant), the once in 50 years daily low flowrate is
122 m³/s, for Saint-Alban it is 190 m3/s1341.

Stringent Flow Regulation at Chooz
The Chooz nuclear plant is located on the Meuse River less than
10 kilometers upstream of the Belgian border. The water from the Meuse
is used in Belgium to produce drinking water for the Namur area and toprovide cooling for industries, including the Tihange nuclear plant.
A Franco-Belgian agreement was negotiated to share the water fromthe river. In practice, this agreement renders the shutdown of one of
the two Chooz units mandatory whenever the river flowrate is below
22 m3 /s over a 12-day moving average. Both units have to be put offline
when the flowrate is less than 20 m3 /s over a 12-day moving average or if
it drops below 14 m³/s on daily average. This is a much more restrictive
framework than those enjoyed by other French nuclear plants. The daily
flowrate of the Meuse River dropped below 20 m³/s five times over the
past 15 years.
This rule led to the shutdown of both 1450 MW units from 24 August
to 28 September 2020, the shutdown of one reactor in September 2018
(21–25), October 2018 (11–26) and September 2019 (11–30), in addition to
17 partial outages over those past three years.
Plants equipped with closed-circuit cooling systems need much less water, 2.0–2.6 m3/s per
reactor, depending on its capacity, but some are located on rivers with far lower flowrates thanthe Rhône. For instance, Civaux needs approximately 5 m3/s at full capacity and is located ona segment of the Vienne River with a once in 50-years low flowrate of 6 m3/s, Cattenom needs
8 m³/s for a low flowrate of 9 m3/s. Even though these plants need less water and operate with amargin, they can be less acceptable to other river users because part of the water is evaporated
in the cooling tower, effectively reducing the flowrate of rivers that are already shallow. For
1340 - EDF, “Centrales nucléaires et environnement – Prélèvements d’eau et rejets”, April 2014 (in French),see https://www.edp-open.org/images/stories/books/fulldl/guide-EDF_open.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1341 - All flow data from Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition, “Banque Hydro”, Undated,
see http://www.hydro.eaufrance.fr.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 example, in a once in 50-years drought, the four 1300 MW Cattenom reactors could evaporate
as much as one third of the Moselle River flow.
Such eventuality obviously makes the regulation of water use by nuclear plants indispensable.
However, the regulation in that area is less restrictive than on thermal discharge. Water
withdrawals are limited to higher volumes than what plants actually need in normal operation(for instance 140 m³/s for Saint-Alban or 6 m3/s for Civaux). A minimal downstream flow is
not always mandated and, where it exists, is set to very low values: the flow downstream of
Nogent, for instance, is theoretically allowed to be as low as 8 m3/s, less than half the lower flow
observed in that area since public records are available.
For other plants, like Golfech or Dampierre, the regulation gives the administration the ability
to restrict water use when river flow reaches a “crisis” level, a very low flowrate value set
by regional water management plans or by the regulation itself. It does not seem that thesedispositions were ever used.

Low flowrates can still disrupt nuclear production
Despite the current absence of technical limits and mostly lenient regulation, the operations ofsome French nuclear plants are frequently perturbed by low flowrates. This is because during
low flowrate periods, rivers cannot efficiently dilute hot water discharged from the power
plant, making it harder to comply with temperature regulations.
The maximum increase of temperature between upstream and downstream is limited for all
inland nuclear plants. This temperature increase depends on the quantity of waste energy
evacuated to the river (i.e.: plant’s rated power, actual load factor and cooling system) but also
on the river flow.
All things being equal, the increase of temperature between upstream and downstream ismultiplied by two when the river flow is divided by two. As a result, low flowrate periods canmake it almost impossible to comply with regulations on maximum temperature increase,regardless of pre-existing ambient air or water temperatures.
This is particularly true for plants equipped with once-through cooling systems without
cooling towers as the thermal energy they need to evacuate is approximately two times theelectrical power produced. As a consequence, this type of outages occurs frequently in autumn
at Saint-Alban and Bugey, and occasionally at Tricastin.

Autumn-type outage characteristics
Autumn-type outages are caused by low flowrates and triggered directly by flow regulation (forChooz) or indirectly by thermal discharge regulation (mostly for inland plants equipped withonce-through cooling). They are the most widespread outages in term of production losses.
Autumn-type outages significantly differ from summer-type outages as:ɆɆ They last longer, as a low flowrate period can last for weeks, even months, and cause
long-lasting disruptions. These long-term disruptions often take the form of short, daily
deratings rather than continuous outages. This is because, in most cases, the temperature
increase between upstream and downstream is calculated over a 24-hour period.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Accordingly, the operator can produce at full capacity when demand is high even if it leads
to a temporary breaching of the threshold as long as he reduces or shuts down production
later in the day to compensate.
ɆɆ The period of vulnerability is extended from August to November, including months
where the electricity demand can be high. This was apparent in 2020, when, combined withlow availability due to the pandemic, the shutdown of Chooz in September caused France tobe a net importer of electricity for a full month for the first time since November 2017.1342
ɆɆ They are local and there is no reason for autumn-type outages to happen at the sametime in different watersheds. Even in the same watershed, hydrological conditions can bedifferent depending on the segment of the river, for instance Tricastin which is implantedon the Rhône after the confluence of the Isere is less exposed than Bugey and Saint-Alban
upstream.
ɆɆ While the operator has very little leverage on summer type outages, autumn typedisruptions can be mitigated (or aggravated) by water management practices and relations
with other river users, in particular they pose unique issues for transboundary rivers, e.g.
with Belgium being located downstream of Chooz, but also Switzerland upstream of the
Rhône power plants.

Winter-type Disruptions:
Higher-Risk / Lower-Frequency Events Caused by Storms or Floods
Between 2015 and 2020, almost all weather-related outages reported by EDF happened between
July and November. However, weather can disrupt the operation of nuclear plants during otherseasons, especially in winter: the Blayais site was flooded in December 1999; reactors in Cruas
and Tricastin were forced to shut down in December 2003 following historically high floodsin the Rhône valley; in 2009 after severe rainfalls several tons of algae piled up on pumping
station grates in Cruas eventually causing the loss of both feedwater intakes at Unit 4.
These outages were caused by extreme weather events like storm, high wind or torrential
rain. Such events can impact nuclear stations in a variety of ways: flooding of essential partsof equipment, direct damage to the plant or its surrounding infrastructures, fouling of thewater intakes and sometimes a combination of several effects. The Blayais incident in 1999, forexample is recorded as a flooding event but even before the plant was flooded, Units 2 and 4
were shut down because of an electrical surge on their main power lines while the auxiliary
lines were unavailable due to treefall; and, even as its basement and emergency pumps werealready under water, the Unit 1 was stopped because the cooling system of its turbine wasclogged by debris.1343
The most common cause of winter outages however appears to be fouling of pumping stations.
Pumping stations supply water to cool the turbine via a condenser and the reactor itself via
a separate circuit. These pumps have a critical role in ensuring the continuity of electricity
production and the safety of the nuclear reactor, but they can be temporarily disabled when
1342 - RTE, “Le mensuel de l’électricité–Analyse du mois de Septembre”, September 2020 (in French), p. 4, see https://assets.rte-france.
com/prod/public/2020-10/RTE-Mensuel-Electricite-Septembre-2020-V3.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1343 - OPECST, “Rapport sur le contrôle de la sûreté et de la sécurité des installations nucléaires”, Parliamentary Office for Evaluationof Scientific and Technological Options, French Parliament, April 2000 (in French), see http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/rap-oecst/
r2331/r2331-1.asp, accessed 16 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 large amounts of foreign matter gather on their grates. Since 2000, fouling occurred at least in
Blayais, Cruas, Flamanville, Paluel, Penly, and Tricastin.1344
Such events usually require the combination of two phenomena: the buildup of a stock offoreign matter, such as algae, vegetal wastes or invertebrates, near the plant or upstream anda meteorological event that set it in motion and send it to the pumping station. As the foreign
matter involved in fouling is often biological, its proliferation can be amplified by warming
waters as well as other phenomena like eutrophication.1345 The frequency and severity of
meteorological events triggering the displacement of matter and the fouling may also evolvewith climate change. However, magnitude and direction of this evolution are difficult toanticipate.

Winter Fouling in Blayais
The Blayais nuclear plant, located on the Gironde estuary, is particularly prone tofouling between February and April. The latest example occurred between 28 February
and 6 March 2021 when three of the four units had to be shut down due to abnormal
presence of sediments in the filtering drums of their pumping stations.1346
Fouling risk in Blayais is aggravated by various phenomena, some of them, like hightide, independent from weather. The concentration of biological wastes in the estuary
seems to be correlated with autumn drought, when low flowrates contribute to theaccumulation of organic matter in the middle course of the Dordogne and Garonnerivers. These wastes are later washed away by winter floods ending their course in theestuary. As climate projections anticipate decreasing river flowrates in that area, the riskof fouling in Blayais may grow in the future even during normal winters.1347

Whereas summer and autumn outages are now frequent, with at least a few cases annually,
winter disruptions are less regular and less predictable. They can however be more severe. The
Blayais flooding in 1999 and the Cruas fouling in 2009, for example, caused significant damage
and have serious safety implications. Both were rated Level 2 on the International Nuclear
Event Scale (INES).1348

1344 - EDF, “Centrales nucléaires et environnement – Prélèvements d’eau et rejets”, April 2014 (in French), op. cit.
1345 - Natalie Kopytko, “The Adaptation-Mitigation Dilemma: is Nuclear Power a Practical Solution for Climate Change?”, Thesis,
Evergreen State College, June 2009, p. 136, see https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1206/ML12066A290.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1346 - EDF, “Reconnexion de l’unité de production n°1 de la centrale nucléaire du Blayais”, 2 Marcch 2021, see https://www.
edf.fr/groupe-edf/produire-une-energie-respectueuse-du-climat/minisite-temporaire/la-centrale-nucleaire-du-blayais/lesactualites-de-la-centrale-nucleaire-du-blayais/reconnexion-de-l-unite-de-production-ndeg1-de-la-centrale-nucleaire-du-blayais,
accessed 16 August 2021.
1347 - Ana Fuentes-Cid, Éric De-Oliveira et al., “Apport d’une étude pluridisciplinaire des débris végétaux dans l’estuaire de la Girondeà la compréhension des phénomènes de colmatage du circuit de refroidissement du Centre Nucléaire de Production d’Électricité duBlayais” [“Contribution of a multidisciplinary study of vegetal debris in the Gironde estuary to understand clogging events of thecooling circuit of the Blayais Nuclear Power Plant”], Hydroécologie Appliquée, Vol. 18, 2014 (in French), see https://www.hydroecologie.
org/articles/hydro/abs/2014/01/hydro140004/hydro140004.html, accessed 16 August 2021.
1348 - See IAEA, “International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES)”, undated, see https://www.iaea.org/resources/databases/
international-nuclear-and-radiological-event-scale, accessed 16 August 2021.

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MANAGING CLIMATE RISKS IN THE FUTURE
Limited Adaptation Options for the Existing, Ageing Fleet
In response to the 2003 heatwave, EDF put in place a plan to adapt existing nuclear plants,
known as Référentiel “Grands Chauds” (Great Heat Guidance). As its name suggests, this plan
focuses on the revision of air and water temperature assumptions used to design critical safety
equipment and building cooling-systems. The approach adopted is essentially short-term,
iterative adaptations to existing nuclear plants. Temperature assumptions must be reevaluatedprior to the 10-year comprehensive safety reviews.
The methodology adopted by EDF to evaluate future climate conditions adds to this short-term
view. While most adaptation strategies are founded on climate projections, e.g. the simulationof the Earth’s future climate based on various scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations,
EDF uses extrapolations. Maximum temperatures are calculated by extending historicalobservations over a 10-year period.1349 This implicitly carries a risk of underestimating futuretemperature variation, especially with the projected nonlinear escalation of climatic effects,
particularly after the 1.5°C limit is crossed.1350
Similarly, the impact of climate change on reference-flood scenarios is limited to theextrapolation of the mean sea level until the next safety review.1351 In practice, this leads, forexample, for the Blayais and Gravelines power plants, to an increase of 50 centimeters in thereference level for core safety equipment and +20 centimeters for the rest of the installation.1352
By contrast, projections for sea level, storm surge and wind suggest that sea level could rise
more quickly in the Channel, where Gravelines is located, than in the Bay of Biscay where
Blayais is situated.1353
Little changes were made to guarantee the production during heatwaves or droughts.
Adaptation options in that area are indeed very limited for existing plants. Barring a revisionof temperature and flow regulations, only minimal gains are possible through improvement of
the efficiency of the cooling system, for instance via reinforcement and more frequent cleaningof the condenser.

1349 - Alain Vicaud and Eric Jouen, “Adapter les centrales nucléaires au changement climatique”, EDF, in Revue Générale Nucléaire,
published online December 2015 (in French), see https://www.sfen.org/rgn/adapter-centrales-nucleaires-changement-climatique,accessed 16 August 2021.
1350 - IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers” in “Global Warming of 1.5°C – An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of
1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global
Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty”, 2018, see https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15_SPM_version_report_LR.pdf, accessed 16 August 2021.
1351 - ASN, “Protection of Basic Nuclear Installations Against External Flooding—Guide N°13”, French Nuclear Safety
Authority, 8 January 2013, see http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/References/ASN-Guides-non-binding/ASN-Guide-No.-13,
accessed 16 August 2021.
1352 - IRSN, “Réexamen de sûreté des réacteurs de 900 MWe : Foire aux questions”, October 2020 (in French), see https://www.irsn.fr/
FR/connaissances/Installations_nucleaires/Les-centrales-nucleaires/visites-decennales/Reexamen-900/Pages/5-Reexamen-de-suretereacteurs-900-MWe-FAQ.aspx#12, accessed 17 August 2021.
1353 - Data from Copernicus. See Copernicus Climate Change Service, “Water Level Change Indicators for the European Coastfrom 1977 to 2100 Derived from Climate Projections”, European Commission, 2021, see https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/
dataset/10.24381/cds.b6473cc1.

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Factoring Climate Change into New Projects
Extensive modification of the plant design that are required for major adaptations can only
be performed for new constructions. The EPR design includes features that will make itless susceptible to some of the weather-related disruptions observed over the past decades;
for instance four independent water intakes, instead of two for second generation reactors,
will reduce the risk of fouling.1354 On the other hand, with 67 m3/s, an EPR with once-throughcooling needs significantly more cooling water than any other nuclear reactor ever built inFrance.1355
In any case, adapting the design of new reactors to face past events is insufficient. They should
be designed to operate safely and reliably under climatic conditions they will encounter during
the second half of the century, or at least be flexible enough to allow future adaptations. The
siting decisions also have an important role to play. Reactors cooled by rivers, for instance,
would obviously be more vulnerable to an aridification of the climate, and even among inland
reactors the Rhône offers a far better margin than smaller rivers.
Finally, the vulnerability of nuclear power production to climate change should be seen throughthe lens of the wider electricity system. For example, one key uncertainty when assessing theimpact of future weather-related disruptions is the increased penetration of air-conditioning.
Currently, low electricity consumption in summer is greatly helping the French electricity
system to weather short-term drops of availability during heatwaves. It is not obvious that thisfavorable situation will endure.

Preliminary safety considerations of nuclear-climate interactions
Besides the substantial economic and financial risks related to unplanned power outages,
there are implicit nuclear safety risks that can be associated with climate-linked disruptions.
While climatic disruptions alone are unlikely, though not impossible, to cause a major nuclear
accident, they can be a precursor of a major disaster. Such impact on nuclear safety can takevarious forms, including the following:ɆɆ Even though the adaptability of nuclear energy to adverse climatic conditions has been
demonstrated by some plants to some degree, like Palo Verde in the U.S. or Barakah in the
UAE, the potential expansion of nuclear power into a variety of climate zones exposed toincreasingly intense weather conditions could exacerbate risks under a weak regulatory
framework that lacks proper site-suitability studies.1356
ɆɆ Wildfires, severe storms or flooding can directly impact the safety of nuclear power plants,
as illustrated notably by the Blayais incident in 1999 mentioned above.

1354 - IRSN, “Refroidissement des installations nucléaires – Une remise à niveau sur l’ensemble des réacteurs depuis 2009”, Undated(in French), see https://www.irsn.fr/FR/connaissances/Installations_nucleaires/Les-centrales-nucleaires/source-froide-pompagerefroidissement/Pages/2-Remise-niveau-Source-Froide.aspx?dId=0a389813-b526-4a03-94ba-84dddcaaef14&dwId=a7b334d0-1b7947c9-a142-5832def01f25, accessed 18 August 2021.
1355 - EDF, “Projet Flamanville 3—Construction d’une centrale électronucléaire ‘tête de série EPR’ sur le site de Flamanville”,
Débat Public 2005/06, p. 44, see https://cpdp.debatpublic.fr/cpdp-epr/docs/pdf/dossier_mo/dossier_mo_interactif.pdf,
accessed 18 August 2021.
1356 - In fact, there have already been a number of site selections in the past, notably in the Middle East and in Asia, that are based onquestionable methodologies and/or oversight.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 ɆɆ A nuclear accident could coincide with an event such as a wildfire, a strong storm or
flooding, which could hinder site access during critical periods.1357 In such a scenario, theemergency safety response could be compromised by unexpected extreme weather events.
Additionally, as mentioned above, projected higher sea level rise is expected to increase theintensity of coastal storms and the chances of flooding in low-lying assets, including coastal
nuclear power plants. This could impact the operations and safety of nuclear power plants. For
example, the U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) identifies the climate-induced hazards
as a source of concern, especially due to the lengthy lifetime of nuclear assets.1358 However, a
recent analysis has highlighted that the U.K. ONR has not quantitatively defined the thresholdof climate impacts (sea level rise for example).1359

Policy Implications
In an increasingly competitive energy space with focus on affordable and resilient energy
systems, the highlighted climate risks can have important policy implications for the future of
nuclear energy.
Governments, planning authorities, the nuclear industry itself and civil society need to takeclimate risks to the nuclear sector more seriously. These risks are yet to appear in any in-depth
economic or safety assessments to date. A systemic and comprehensive risk assessment thatcovers the full spectrum of not only current, but also projected extreme weather conditions,would be essential to future decision-making. The centerpieces of these assessments areweighing of energy policy options in a given geographical, climatic, societal and politicalframework, open-minded site selection procedures and nuclear technology choices.
In principle, water-cooled nuclear technologies can adopt some adaptation pathways such as
shifting to dry cooling (using air-cooled condenser) or relying on better predictive weathermodels. However, although dry cooling reduces vulnerability to water temperature andavailability issues, it could increase vulnerability to air-temperature constraints. Regardlessof the adopted mitigation pathway, there will be substantial economic losses. For example, drycooling lowers the thermal efficiency of the power plant. Advanced reactor concepts that use
coolants other than water (such as gases or liquid metals) could be deployed too but these facesignificant development barriers, deployment challenges and tradeoffs.1360
One major difference between nuclear power and most other energy sources is the long(theoretical) lifespan of nuclear assets and the lengthy construction time. While the nameplate
lifetime of solar and wind is between 20 to 30 years, nuclear reactors are now designed andbuilt to operate for 60 years, with an average construction time of around 10 years.1361 This
1357 - This was the case when the access road to the Blayais nuclear power plant was flooded in December 1999. An injured person thus
could not be evacuated.
1358 - UK-ONR, “Nuclear Safety Technical Assessment Guide on External Hazards”, UK Office for Nuclear Regulation, 2018.
1359 - Paul Dorfman, “Climate Change UK Nuclear”, Nuclear Consulting Group, 2021, see https://www.nuclearconsult.com/wp/wpcontent/uploads/2021/06/Climate-Change-UK-Nuclear-June-2021.pdf, accessed 2 July 2021.
1360 - M. V. Ramana and Zia Mian, “One size doesn’t fit all: Social priorities and technical conflicts for small modular reactors”,
Energy Research & Social Science, Vol. 2, June 2014, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629614000486,
accessed 26 October 2020.
1361 - Coal-fired power plants also have a long lifetime of 60 years. However, conducting major climate-smart refurbishment withinalready operating nuclear power plants is likely to take much longer and require higher resources due to the presence of higher levels of
regulatory requirements.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 limits the prospects of incorporating new technological solutions and interventions in a timely
manner in nuclear projects that are either operating or under construction. In fact, any designchanges might trigger further delays due to the need to conduct new safety and regulatory
assessments.
An interesting example that highlights the complexity of incorporating adaptation measures
after the power plant has been built is the Ascó nuclear power plant in Spain, which consists of
two reactor units cooled in open circuit by the Ebro River. A few years after startup, regulatory
authorities deemed the impact on river temperature as too high. A cooling tower was added,
but the reactor and turbine cooling systems were not modified, i.e. the cooling tower is onlyused to cool the water discharged from the reactors before it is returned to the river, increasing
costs and water consumption as now some of the water is evaporated and not returned to theriver anymore.1362 In other cases, operators decided to close reactors rather than to add towers
to the plant, e.g. as happened in the case of Indian Point close to New York. The last of threeoperating units ceased operating at the end of April 2021.

CONCLUSION
The impact of a changing climate on the operation of nuclear power plants is evident. Nuclear
power reactors are vulnerable to an array of direct and indirect climate-linked disruptions.
This vulnerability is expected to become more pronounced as the frequency and intensity of
extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and severe storms increase because ofclimate change.
In France, so far, weather-related disruptions on the nuclear fleet have usually remained mild,
with production loss over the past six years representing <0.5 percent of total. However, shortterm impact can reach several percent over several weeks and the capacity loss has reached
up to 10 percent of the installed nuclear capacity. It is also worth noting that some past events
caused a drop in availability large enough to have an impact on the electricity market and, inrare occasions, nuclear safety was at stake.
As nuclear energy seems bound to remain a disproportionate contributor to French electricity
production at least for some time, it will have to face significant uncertainties and risks. Will
the unavailability caused by heat, drought and extreme weather events remain manageable
under deteriorating climate change conditions? How will they interact with the impact ofclimate change in other sectors as well as long-term economic, technical and social trends, likemore expensive peaker plants, stiffer competition for access to water or increased penetrationof air conditioning?
These questions are becoming more pressing as the French nuclear program approaches atipping point. The currently operating fleet of second-generation reactors is reaching the endof their originally envisaged operational lives. The options are lifetime extensions, new-build
or a significant shift in energy policy. All options will be impacted by climate change and thein-depth assessment of the implications should be part of the decision-making process.

1362 - See diagram of Ascó nuclear power plant: anav, “Ascó”, Undated, see https://www.anav.es/en/anav-en/diagram/,
accessed 28 May 2021.

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Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research on these topics. When it comes to the impact of
future climate change, the scientific literature appears to be far thinner in the case of nuclear
power than for renewable energies, such as hydro or wind, or even for transmission systems.1363

1363 - Jennifer Cronin, Gabrial Anandarajah and Olivier Dessens, “Climate change impacts on the energy system: a review of trends
and gaps”, Climatic Change, 6 August 2018, see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2265-4.

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TABLE OF ANNEXES
Annex 1 – Overview by Region and Country		

339

Annex 2 – Status of Japanese Nuclear Fleet		392

Annex 3 - Status of Nuclear Power in the World		

394

Annex 4 – Nuclear Reactors in the World “Under Construction”		

395

Annex 5 – Abbreviations		

401

Annex 6 – About the Authors		

405

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ANNEX 1 – OVERVIEW BY
REGION AND COUNTRY
These “quick view”
indicators will be usedin the country sections
throughout the report.

Unless otherwise noted, data on the numbers of reactors operating and under construction
and their capacity (as of mid-2021) and nuclear’s share in electricity generation in 2020 are
from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Power Reactor Information System (IAEAPRIS) online database.1364 Historical maximum figures indicate the year that the nuclear sharein the power generation of a given country was the highest since 1986, the year of the Chernobyl
disaster.

AFRICASouth Africa
Africa’s only commercial nuclear power plant consists of two 900 MW reactors located at
Koeberg, near Cape Town in South Africa. Both reactors started operating in the mid-1980s.
In 2020, they generated 11.6 TWh representing 5.9 percent of the country’s power, a decreaseof nearly 2 percentage points over the previous year, and down from the historical maximumof 7.4 percent in 1989. 2020 was a landmark year for the South African grid, as variable
renewables—namely solar and wind—produced more electricity than the nuclear power plant
for the first time.1365
The reactors were initially permitted to operate for 40 years and now plan a series of
replacement and upgrading work to extend their operational lifetimes.1366 The decision to
replace all six steam generators of the two units was taken in 2010. AREVA was awarded thecontract in 20141367 , and a lengthy legal battle with competitor Westinghouse followed. In
2018, the Parliament began investigations into the actions of several Eskom officials relating
to several issues, including the steam generator contracts. The Parliament committee report
1364 - IAEA-PRIS, “Nuclear Share of Electricity Generation in 2019”, see https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/
NuclearShareofElectricityGeneration.aspx.
1365 - Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai, “Solar & Wind In South Africa Contributed More Than Nuclear For 1st Time Ever In 2020”,
CleanTechnica, 13 March 2021, see https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/13/solar-wind-in-south-africa-contributed-more-than-nuclearfor-1st-time-ever-in-2020/, accessed 26 June 2021.
1366 - Kevin Brandt, “Koeberg nuclear plant components can run beyond 2045, say experts”, Eyewitness News, 5 November 2019,see https://ewn.co.za/2019/11/05/koeberg-nuclear-plant-components-can-run-beyond-2045-say-experts, accessed 25 June 2021.
1367 - NEI, “AREVA to replace steam generators at Koeberg”, 19 August 2014, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsareva-toreplace-steam-generators-at-koeberg-4346550/, accessed 25 June 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 concluded that the former chairmen and executives of Eskom “reasonably ought to have
known or suspected” that their failure to report the flouting of governance rules relating tosome contracts, including those relating to the steam generator replacement “may constitutecriminal conduct”.1368
The plant has been operating at low temperatures to reduce the pace of corrosion in thesteam generator tubes. The replacement of the steam generators is scheduled to be carriedout in 2021.1369 Problems with the existing steam generators continue to plague the plant, andin January 2021, Unit 1 was taken offline for several months due to leakage. The unplanned
outage of the reactor caused further supply problems for the already struggling Eskom, leading
to additional load-shedding (power rationing).1370
The state-owned South African utility and Koeberg operator Eskom had considered
acquiring additional large PWRs and had made plans to build 20 GW of generating capacity
by 2025. However, in November 2008, Eskom scrapped an international tender because theGovernment was unwilling to provide the loan guarantees demanded by potential financiers,
and credit-rating agencies threatened downgrades. In 2011, the Department of Energy (DOE)
published an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for future power generation investments that
contained a 9.6 GW target, or six nuclear units, by 2030. Startup would have been one unit
every 18 months beginning in 2022. The total price of the project was estimated to be in therange of US$37‑100 billion.1371
In April 2017, the Western Cape division of South Africa’s High Court ruled in favor of twoNGOs, the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) and
Earthlife Africa, in their cases against the Government. This halted a December 2015 decision
to procure 9.6 GW of new nuclear capacity and annulled the nuclear co-operation agreementsthat the Government had signed with Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The
court concluded that the lack of public consultation on the decisions “rendered its decision
procedurally unfair” and breached its statute.1372 In May 2017, the Government announced
that it would not appeal the court. The 2018 Goldman environmental prize was awarded tograssroots activists Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid for the successful legal challenge inthis case.1373
In January 2018, future President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Davos that “we have no money togo for major nuclear plant building.”1374 Even the chief financial officer of Eskom stated: “I can’t
1368 - Alec Hogg et al., “Three former Eskom chairmen to be criminally probed”, BizNews.com, 28 November 2018,see https://www.biznews.com/briefs/2018/11/28/eskom-chairmen-criminal-probe, accessed 25 June 2021.
1369 - According to an Eskom spokesperson, personal communication, Anton Eberhard, email dated 13 July 2020.
1370 - NEI, “Koeberg 1 closed after steam generator leakage”, 11 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newskoeberg-1closed-after-steam-generator-leakage-8446258, accessed 26 June 2021.
1371 - NEI, “Eskom plans RFP for new reactors by mid-year”, 15 March 2017, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newseskomplans-rfp-for-new-reactors-by-mid-year-5761595/, accessed 25 June 2021.
1372 - Phil Chaffee, “Legal: High Court Upends South African Newbuild Plans”, NIW, 28 April 2017.
1373 - Jonathan Watts, “Goldman prize awarded to South African women who stopped an international nuclear deal”, The Guardian,
23 April 2018, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/goldman-prize-awarded-to-south-african-women-who-stopped-aninternational-nuclear-deal, accessed 25 June 2021.
1374 - Alexis Akwagyiram, “South Africa has no money for major nuclear expansion, Ramaphosa says”, Reuters, 25 January 2018,see https://www.reuters.com/article/davos-meeting-safrica-nuclear/south-africa-has-no-money-for-major-nuclear-expansionramaphosa-says-idINKBN1FE2O4, accessed 25 June 2021.

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go and commit to additional expenditure around a nuclear program.”1375 In August 2018, theGovernment published its draft IRP 20181376, in which new nuclear is absent in the period up to2030.1377
However, in October 2019, in the updated IRP document, nuclear power was described as a “noregret option”. The document stated that due to the expected decommissioning of 24 GW ofcoal capacity, it was proposed to implement nuclear “at an affordable pace and modular scale”
and “at a pace and scale the country can afford”.1378
In June 2020, the Government issued a “Request for Information” (RfI) to enable an assessmentof the potential reactor technologies to “be considered” under a future newbuild program thatmight encompass both conventional reactors and SMRs. The vendors were expected to supply
technical and financial information by 15 September 2020.1379
In November 2020, the National Energy Regulator launched a three-month consultation on
the draft plan to construct 2.5 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2030 and beyond. Within the
consultation announcement, the regulator stated that it “has not yet formulated any opinions
on the issues that are raised in this consultation paper but is raising them so that stakeholders
can give their opinions”.1380
Submissions to the consultation highlighted the additional costs of including nuclear powerin the power mix. A scenario with additional nuclear and constraint in renewables’ expansion
was found to cost an additional cumulated R200 billion (US$14 billion) by 2040 compared to a
scenario with no nuclear, no increase in coal and unrestricted expansion of renewables.1381

1375 - NIW, “Weekly Roundup”, 2 February 2018.
1376 - Despite there being half a dozen versions of the IRP, only one, the revision of 2011 was ‘promulgated’ so all the other versions
including the August 2018 version have no policy status.
1377 - NEI, “South Africa cancels nuclear expansion plans”, 30 August 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newssouthafrica-cancels-nuclear-expansion-plans-6728356/, accessed 25 June 2021.
1378 - Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, “Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2019)”, October 2019,see http://www.energy.gov.za/IRP/2019/IRP-2019.pdf, accessed 25 June 2021.
1379 - Roger Murray and Phil Chaffee, “South Africa: Government RFI Keeps New Nuclear Option Alive”, NIW, 19 June 2020.
1380 - NEI, “South African regulator launches consultation on new nuclear”, 26 November 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newssouth-african-regulator-launches-consultation-on-new-nuclear-8380496/, accessed 25 June 2021.
1381 - Helen Suzman Foundation, “Comments to NERSA on the ministerial determination of October 2020 regarding thecommencement of a process to procure 2 500MW of new nuclear generation capacity”, 3 February 2021, see https://hsf.org.za/
publications/submissions/comments-by-hsf-to-nersa-on-ministerial-determination-3-february-2021.pdf, accessed 26 June 2020.

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THE AMERICAS
Argentina
Argentina has three nuclear reactors that provided 10 TWh of electricity in 2020, an increaseof 2 TWh over the previous year, and represented 7.5 percent of the country’s electricity
generation (up from 5.9 percent in 2019, but down from a maximum of 19.8 percent in 1990).
They were all supplied by foreign reactor builders. Atucha-1 and -2 were built by German
company Siemens, and the CANDU (CANadian Deuterium Uranium) type reactor at Embalse
by Canadian Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).
In April 2018, the regulatory authority gave a lifetime extension license to enable Atucha-1,
originally started up in 1974, to continue operating until 2024, which would thus allow for a
50-year working life.1382
Embalse, which started operating in 1983, was shut down at the end of 2015 for major overhaul,
including replacing hundreds of pressure tubes, to enable it to operate for up to 30 more years.
It eventually returned to service in May 2019.1383
Atucha-2 was ordered in 1979 and construction was stop/start for the following decades, but
finally, grid connection was announced on 27 June 2014. It took until 26 May 2016 to enter
commercial operation.1384
For the past decade, discussions have been held on the construction of a fourth reactor. In
February 2015, Argentina and China ratified an agreement to build an 800 MW CANDU-type
reactor at the Atucha site, when Atucha-3 was expected to cost US$5.8 billion.1385 A frameworkagreement was also signed in 2015 between the two companies to construct a Hualong One
reactor, China’s Generation-III design, without a site being specified. In May 2017, a cooperation agreement was signed between Argentina and China, whereby China would help
build and mainly finance the construction of the two reactors, with the CANDU-6 starting
construction in 2018 and the Hualong reactor in 2020.1386 However, the site for the Hualong
reactor has not been agreed on, as the Governor of Rio Negro—the Government’s preferred
location—rejected the construction of the reactor in his province, citing a lack of social
acceptance for the project.1387
Despite this, the Government insisted in October 2017 that construction on both projects
would begin in the 2nd half of 2018. The total cost of the Hualong and Atucha-3 projects were1382 - WNN, “Atucha 1 operating licence renewed”, 16 April 2018, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Atucha-1-operatinglicence-renewed-1604184.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1383 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Argentina”, January 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/
countries-a-f/argentina.aspx, accessed 7 May 2021.
1384 - WNN, “Atucha 2 receives full operating licence”, 31 May 2016, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Atucha-2-receivesfull-operating-licence-3105165.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1385 - WNN, “Argentina and China sign contract for two reactors”, 18 May 2017, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NNArgentina-and-China-sign-contract-for-two-reactors-1805175.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1386 - CNNC, “CNNC to build heavy water reactor and HPR 1000 units in Argentina”, China National Nuclear Corporation,
19 May 2017, see http://en.cnnc.com.cn/2017-05/19/c_77725.htm, accessed 7 May 2021.
1387 - Phil Chaffee, “Argentina”, NIW, 29 September 2017.

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expected to be US$12.5 billion, (other sources indicate US$15 billion)1388 financed with a 20-year
loan from China at an interest rate of 4.5 percent. In May 2018, the Government announced
that it was suspending talks with China regarding the construction of both reactors for at least
four years.1389
In June 2019, the Argentine Government expressed ongoing support for the project
following official meetings with the Chinese, with Argentina’s cabinet chief Marcos Penasaying, “there is an intention to move forward.”1390 The President of China National Nuclear
Corporation (CNNC) Jun Gu told delegates at an IAEA conference in October 2019 that
construction of the reactors would begin in 20201391, which did not happen.
There are few indications that the project will proceed, and its prospects are further diminishedby the ongoing tension between the U.S. and China, which may affect developments in Argentina
as the U.S. Department of Defense has identified 20 Chinese companies, including CNNC, as
having ties to the Chinese military. The China-focused U.S.-based news platform SupChina
commented: “If Washington decides to pursue sanctions against those firms, that could be thefinal nail in the coffin of the Argentinian Hualong-1 saga”.1392 This is exactly what happened,
and the two main companies that have developed the Hualong One, CNNC and China General
Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), were blacklisted by the U.S. Administration.1393
However, in June 2021, the state-owned company Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA approved its
Action Plan for the coming years.1394 The plan provides for the construction of a Hualong One
reactor and the “preservation of the national technology (heavy-water natural-uranium)”through the revival of the CANDU project.1395 It remains unclear what influence the U.S.
blacklistings will have on the plan.
Construction of a prototype 27-MWe PWR, the domestically designed CAREM-25 (Central
Argentina de Elementos Modulares—a pressurized-water SMR) began near the Atucha site
in February 2014, with startup initially planned for 2018. The reactor was expected to cost
US$446 million.1396 In 2019, it was rescheduled to begin operating in 2022.1397 However, late1388 - WNN, “Argentina and China Sign Contract for Two Reactors”, May 2017, op. cit.
1389 - Phil Chaffee, “The Fallout From Argentina’s Newbuild Retreat”, NIW, 25 May 2018.
1390 - Cassandra Garrison and Hugh Bronstein, “Argentine official, in China, talks nuclear deal and soymeal”, Reuters, as publishedon SaltWire, 25 June 2019, see https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/business/argentine-official-in-china-talks-nuclear-deal-andsoymeal-326387/, accessed 7 May 2021.
1391 - WNN, “China confident of ‘new era’ for nuclear, says CNNC president”, 9 October 2019,see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-confident-of-new-era-for-nuclear-says-CNNC accessed 7 May 2021.
1392 - Álvaro Etchegaray, “Chinese nuclear energy in Argentina is in trouble”, SupChina, 3 September 2020,see https://supchina.com/2020/09/03/chinese-nuclear-energy-in-argentina-is-in-trouble/, accessed 7 May 2021.
1393 - Bureau of Industry and Security, “Entity List”, U.S. Department of Commerce,see https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-parties-of-concern/entity-list, accessed 7 July 2021.
1394 - Nucleoeléctrica Argentina S.A., “Impulso al desarrollo nuclear: el Poder Ejecutivo Nacional aprobó el Plan de Acción de
Nucleoeléctrica Argentina”, 7 July 2021, see https://portal.na-sa.com.ar/es/prensa/impulso-al-desarrollo-nuclear-el-poder-ejecutivonacional-aprobo-el-plan-de-accion-de-nucleoelectrica-argentina-230, accessed 29 July 2021.
1395 - Nucleoeléctrica Argentina, “Plan de acción para Nucleoeléctrica Argentina”, June 2021 (in Spanish), Mercado Eléctrico,
30 June 2021, see http://www.melectrico.com.ar/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3120:plan-de-accion-paranucleoelectrica-argentina&catid=1:latest-news, accessed 29 July 2021.
1396 - WNN, “Construction of CAREM underway”, 10 February 2014, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Construction-ofCAREM-underway-1002144.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1397 - Agencia TSS, “CAREM: Reactor en alta tensión”, 21 February 2019, see http://www.unsam.edu.ar/tss/carem-reactor-en-altatension/, accessed 26 June 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 in 2019, Techint Engineering & Construction, the main contractor, halted work, citing latepayment from the Government, unanticipated design changes and late delivery of technicaldocumentation. In April 2020, reports suggested that the dispute had been resolved and thatwork should begin again in May; there is no indication about the impact this would have on
project’s timeline.1398 In an April 2021 interview, Hadid M. Subki, nuclear engineer with the
IAEA’s Department of Nuclear Energy, stated that “CAREM-25 is approaching prototype
operation”; however, there is no other evidence to support this assertion.1399

BrazilBrazil operates two nuclear reactors that provided the country with 13.2 TWh or 2.1 percent of
its electricity in 2020, less than half of the maximum of 4.3 percent in 2001. The constructionof a third reactor was suspended in late 2015.
The first contract for constructing a nuclear power plant, Angra-1, was awarded toWestinghouse in 1970. The reactor eventually went critical in 1981 and is licensed to operate
until December 2024. But in October 2020, Westinghouse signed a contract to conduct
engineering analyses critical to safety, reliability, and long-term operation to be part of the
programme to extend its working life until 2044.1400
Angra-2 is a large PWR German designed reactor, with a capacity of 1275 MW and wasconnected to the grid in July 2000, 24 years after construction started.
Preparatory work for the construction of Angra-3 started in 1984, although it is unclear
how much progress was made. In May 2010, Brazil’s Nuclear Energy Commission issued aconstruction license and the IAEA in the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) records
that construction started on 1 June 2010.
In early 2011, the Brazilian national development bank (BNDES) approved a BRL6.1 billion(US$3.6-billion)-loan for work on the project and in November 2013, Eletrobras Eletronuclear
signed a €1.25 billion (US$20131.67 billion) contract with French builder AREVA for thecompletion of the plant.1401 Commissioning was planned for July 2016 but was delayed to
May 2018 in 2015.1402 However, by February 2016, a deadline of mid-2019 was “already being
reevaluated”.1403

1398 - Dan Yurman, “Argentina Plans To Revive CAREM-25 SMR”, NucNet, as published on Energy Central, 26 April 2020,see https://energycentral.com/c/ec/argentina-plans-revive-carem-25-smr, accessed 26 June 2021.
1399 - NEI, “Prospects for small reactors”, Interview with Hadid M. Subki, Nuclear Engineer, SMR Technology Development,
Department of Nuclear Energy, IAEA, 28 April 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureprospects-for-smallreactors-8707333/, accessed 7 May 2021.
1400 - Westinghouse, “Westinghouse signs Engineering Contract to extend the life of Angra 1”, 5 October 2020, see https://www.
westinghousenuclear.com/uknuclear/about/news/view/westinghouse-signs-engineering-contract-to-extend-the-life-of-angra-1,
accessed 6 October 2020.
1401 - WNN, “Areva contracted to complete Angra 3”, 8 November 2013, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Areva-contractedto-complete-Angra-3-081134.html, accessed 7 May 2021.
1402 - NIW, “Briefs – Brazil”, 9 January 2015.
1403 - NIW, “Brazil: Politics, Corruption and Finances Grind Angra-3 to a Halt”, 19 August 2016.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Over the following years, various government announcements have been made and initiatives
launched to re-start the project. In June 2020, the Government approved plans for completingthe project, “with or without a partner joining Electronuclear.” This is despite the President ofElectronuclear suggesting that an additional BRL14.5 billion (US$2.65 billion) of investment
would be needed to complete the unit.1404
In March 2021, Leonardo Mendes Cabral, director of privatisations at BNDES, said he expects
a financing arrangement to finish Unit 3 of the Angra nuclear power plant will be ready by
the end of 2022. He said that the Brazilian Government and Electrobras had hired BNDES
to develop the project and build it, with an estimated cost of US$3–4 billion.1405 Meanwhile,
Electronuclear has launched a tender with the intention that a contractor will be hired in thesecond half of 2022, and the nuclear plant is scheduled to come online in November 2026.1406
Despite the lack of construction, the project has created political scandals, and even theformer Brazilian President Michel Temer has become involved and arrested, along with others,
in March 2019, for allegedly diverting BRL1.8 billion (US$475 million) from Eletronuclear’s
Angra-3 new-build project.1407 (See also earlier WNISR editions).

CanadaCanada has 19 CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors with a total capacity of 13.5 GWthat produced 92.2 TWh and represented 14.6 percent of total electricity generation in 2020.
This represents a slight decrease from 94.9 TWh in 2019, or 14.9 percent. Eighteen out of the
19 nuclear reactors are located in the province of Ontario, where nuclear power constituted
33 percent of installed capacity and contributed 60 percent of the electricity generated in2020.1408
Most of Canada’s electricity comes from renewable sources. According to Statistics Canada,
renewables contributed 66 percent of the total electricity generated in 2020, slightly more thanthe 2019 share. Renewable electricity is dominated by hydro power, which contributed over
60 percent of all of Canada’s electricity generated; of the remaining, wind energy contributed
5.7 percent, and solar energy 0.4 percent.1409 Over the past decade 2011–2020, Canada’s
total renewable electricity generating capacity has grown from 82.8 GW to 101.2 GW, with

1404 - Marcela Ayres and Anthony Boadle, “UPDATE 1-Brazil government approves plan to complete third nuclear plant”, Reuters,
11 June 2020, see https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-eletrobras-nuclear-idLTAL1N2DN367, accessed 7 May 2021.
1405 - WNN, “Brazil to complete Angra 3 finance package in 18 months, says BNDES director”, 22 March 2021, see https://www.worldnuclear-news.org/Articles/Brazil-to-complete-Angra-3-finance-package-in-18-m?feed=feed, accessed 22 March 2021.
1406 - BNAmericas, “Brazil launches tender to resume Angra 3 nuclear plant works”, 26 February 2021, see https://www.bnamericas.
com/en/news/brazil-launches-tender-to-resume-angra-3-nuclear-plant-works, accessed 22 March 2021.
1407 - NIW, “Brazil: ‘Radioactivity’ Probe Nets Ex-President; Shoot-Out Near Angra”, 22 March 2019.
1408 - IESO, “Power Data – Supply Overview: Transmission-Connected Generation”, Independent Electricity System Operator, 2021,
see https://ieso.ca/en/Power-Data/Supply-Overview/Transmission-Connected-Generation, accessed 30 May 2021.
1409 - Government of Canada, “Electric power generation, monthly generation by type of electricity”, Statistics Canada,
Last Modified 7 July 2021, see https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=2510001501, accessed 13 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 hydropower increasing from 75.4 GW to 80.9 GW, wind from 5.2 GW to 13.6 GW, and solarfrom 0.5 GW to 3.3 GW.1410
Projections by the Canadian Energy Regulator (previously the National Energy Board)
expect the nuclear share of total electricity generation decreasing to 10.9 percent in 2040
and to 10.3 percent in 2050 in the reference, or business-as-usual, scenario.1411 The projection
for renewables seems modest, since it foresees wind and solar energy supplying only
13.7 percent of all electricity by 2050 in its reference scenario, despite the rapid increases inthese technologies over the past decade. In the “evolving scenario”, this fraction goes up to
23.5 percent. Regardless of these percentages, the salient assumption in this projection is thatno new reactors are expected to come online and maintaining these fractions will require mostof the existing reactors to be refurbished.
There are questions about both of these assumptions, the former because of the ardent
promotion of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies (see Chapter on SMRs) by several
federal government agencies, and some provincial governments. The assumption about
refurbishment will depend on how the current refurbishment projects work out. As of now,
only one of the units at the Darlington site (Unit 2) has been refurbished and returned tooperational status, albeit with a delay of around four months. The refurbishment of Unit 3 hascommenced and, as of May 2021, the feeder tubes in Unit 3 had been removed and preparatory
work for the removal of fuel channel assemblies had started.1412 At the Bruce site, refurbishmentof Unit 6 has been ongoing since February 2020, and is “on track” according to Bruce Power.1413
A comparison of Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO)’s annual planningdocuments from January 2020 and December 2020 shows a number of delays in projected
dates: the refurbishment start date for Darlington-1 has been pushed back from 15 October 2021
to 15 February 2022, and the end date from 15 December 2024 to 18 April 2025; the end date forDarlington-3 is now projected as 2 January 2024, in comparison with the earlier projection of
15 June 2023; and the start date for Darlington-4 from 1 May 2023 to 15 September 2023 and theend date from 31 May 2026 to 16 October 2026.1414 See Table 19 for details.
Likewise, the projected retirement dates for Pickering-1 and -4 reactors have been delayed fromthe end of 2022 to the last quarter of 2024 and for Pickering-5 through -8 reactors from the endof 2024 to the end of 2025.1415 This is despite a major report showing that the Canadian Nuclear

1410 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, International Renewable Energy Agency, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/-/
media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2021.pdf, accessed 4 May 2021.
1411 - Canada Energy Regulator/Régie de l’énergie du Canada, “Canada’s Energy Futures 2020 Supplement: Electricity”,
Last Modified 3 March 2021, see https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/canada-energy-future/2020electricity/index.html,
accessed 31 May 2021.
1412 - OPG, “Darlington Refurbishment performance update - Q1 2021”, Ontario Power Generation, May 2021,
see https://www.opg.com/news/darlington-refurbishment-performance-update-q1-2021/, accessed 31 May 2021.
1413 - WNN, “Bruce Power marks first year of refurbishment project”, 24 February 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Bruce-Power-marks-first-year-of-refurbishment-proj, accessed 5 June 2021.
1414 - IESO, “Annual Planning Outlook – Ontario’s Electricity System Needs: 2022-2040”, December 2020,see https://www.ieso.ca/-/media/Files/IESO/Document-Library/planning-forecasts/apo/Annual-Planning-Outlook-Dec2020.ashx;
and IESO, “Annual Planning Outlook – A view of Ontario’s electricity system needs”, January 2020, see http://www.ieso.ca/-/media/
Files/IESO/Document-Library/planning-forecasts/apo/Annual-Planning-Outlook-Jan2020.pdf?la=en, both accessed 1 August 2020.
1415 - Ibidem.

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Safety Commission overlooked unexpected results from inspections of the station’s pressure
tubes that seemed inexplicable, raising safety concerns.1416
Table 19 – Status of Canadian Nuclear Fleet - PLEX and Expected Closures
Grid Connection

Refurbishment(a)Bruce-1

1977

Restarted in 2012

Bruce-2

1976

Restarted in 2012

Bruce-3

1977

01/01/23–30/06/26

Bruce-4

1978

01/01/25–31/12/27

1984

01/07/26–30/06/29

Bruce-6

1984

17/01/20–05/11/23

Bruce-7

1986

01/07/28–30/06/31

Bruce-8

1987

01/07/30–30/06/33

Darlington-1

1990

15/02/22–18/04/25

Darlington-2

1990

10/16–06/20(d)1992

30/07/20–02/01/24

Darlington-4

1993

15/09/23–16/10/26

Pickering-1

1971

30/09/2024(e)Pickering-4

1973

13/12/2024(e)1982

31/12/2025(e)1983

31/12/2025(e)Pickering-7

1984

31/12/2025(e)Pickering-8

1986

31/12/2025(e)Reactor

Bruce-5

Darlington-3

Pickering-5
Pickering-6

Point Lepreau

Operator

Bruce

OPG

OPG

NB Power

1982

03/2008–03/2012

Planned Closure(b)Licensed to(c)

2064

2028

2055

2025

2039–2040(g)2028(f)

2022

Sources: Compiled by WNISR, from IESO, Operators, CNSC, 2021

Notes:
OPG = Ontario Power Generation(a) - IESO, “Annual Planning Outlook - A view of Ontario’s electricity system needs”, January 2020, see http://www.ieso.ca/-/media/Files/IESO/DocumentLibrary/planning-forecasts/apo/Annual-Planning-Outlook-Jan2020.pdf?la=en, accessed 1 August 2020,
Updated with IESO, “Annual Planning Outlook - Ontario’s electricity system needs: 2022-2040”, December 2020, see https://www.ieso.ca/-/media/Files/
IESO/Document-Library/planning-forecasts/apo/Annual-Planning-Outlook-Dec2020.ashx, accessed 12 June 2021.
(b) - As announced by operator.
(c) - As listed on Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (CNSC) website for each station.
Bruce: https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/nuclear-facilities/bruce-nuclear-generating-station/index.cfm;
Darlington: https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/nuclear-facilities/darlington-nuclear-generating-station/index.cfm;
Pickering: https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/nuclear-facilities/pickering-nuclear-generating-station/index.cfm;
Point Lepreau: https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/nuclear-facilities/point-lepreau-nuclear-generating-station/index.cfm.
(d) - Refurbishment of Darlington-2 was completed in June 2020, with the reactor being reconnected to the grid on 2 June 2020. OPG, “Darlington Unit 2
powers on—Refurbishment now complete on first unit”, 4 June 2020, see https://www.opg.com/news/darlington-unit-2-powers-on/, accessed 28 July 2020.
(e) - Pickering Units 1 and 4 are expected to be closed in 2024, and Units 5–8 in 2025. OPG, “The future of Pickering Generating Station”, OPG, n.d.,see https://www.opg.com/powering-ontario/our-generation/nuclear/pickering-nuclear-generation-station/future-of-pickering/, accessed 12 June 2021.
(f) - The Pickering Power Plan is licensed to 2028 but operation beyond 2024 would require additional authorizations, CNSC, “Pickering Nuclear Generating
Station”, Updated 14 July 2021, see https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/nuclear-facilities/pickering-nuclear-generating-station/index.
cfm?pedisable=true.
(g) - NB Power, “NB Power’s 10-Year Plan - Fiscal Years 2021 to 2030”, September 2019, see https://www.nbpower.com/media/1489656/10-yearplan-2021-to-2030.pdf, accessed 13 May 2020, updated with NB Power, “Integrated Resource Plan”, November 2020, see https://www.nbpower.com/
media/1490323/2020-irp-en-2020-11-17.pdf, accessed July 2021.

1416 - Matthew McClearn, “Canada’s nuclear regulator overlooked dubious data when renewing Pickering plant’s licence, documentsshow”, The Globe and Mail, 23 March 2021.

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MexicoIn Mexico, two General Electric (GE) reactors operate at the Laguna Verde power plant, locatedin Alto Lucero, Veracruz. The first unit was connected to the grid in 1989 and the second unit
in 1994. In 2020, nuclear power generation produced a stable 10.9 TWh providing 4.9 percent(+0.4 percentage points) of the country’s electricity. The power plant is owned and operated
by the state utility Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad - CFE).
CFE has requested that the units be granted a 30-year lifetime extension to enable each unit tooperate for a total of 60 years.1417 It was stated that each 1.4 GW-unit would cost US$7 billion
to refurbish.1418 In March 2019, the IAEA completed a long-term operational safety review ofthe plant and made recommendations as part of the process to extend the operating lives of
the reactors. The license renewal was granted in July 2020 to enable operation of Unit 1 until
July 2050.1419
Press reports1420 continually record problems, often age-related, at the Laguna Verde plant,
including an emergency shutdown (a scram) in January 2021 and leaks from the diesel
generators. Between 2012 and 2020, the Laguna Verde recorded 33 unusual events, according
to data from the CFE.1421
In December 2019, it was reported that CFE was considering the construction of an additional
four reactors, two at the existing site at Laguna Verde—an idea that has been around for years,
without any follow-up—and two on the Pacific coast.

United States
See Focus Countries – United States Focus.

ASIA & MIDDLE EAST
China
See Focus Countries – China Focus.

1417 - NEI, “IAEA reviews long term operation of Mexico’s Laguna Verde”, 25 March 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsiaea-reviews-long-term-operation-of-mexicos-laguna-verde-7057990/, accessed 7 May 2021.
1418 - Forbes Mexico, “4 nuclear reactors under consideration by electricity commission”, Mexico News Daily, 11 December 2019.
1419 - Secretaría de Energía, “La Secretaría de Energía renueva la licencia de operación a Unidad 1 de la Central Nuclear Laguna Verde”,
17 July 2020, see http://www.gob.mx/sener/articulos/la-secretaria-de-energia-renueva-la-licencia-de-operacion-a-unidad-1-de-lacentral-nuclear-laguna-verde?idiom=es, accessed 7 May 2021.
1420 - El Universal, “Laguna Verde: could a nuclear accident put Mexico at risk of becoming the next Chernobyl?”, The Yucatan Times,
9 April 2021, see https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2021/04/laguna-verde-could-a-nuclear-accident-put-mexico-at-risk-of-becomingthe-next-chernobyl/, accessed 26 June 2021.
1421 - Eddie Corp, “The damage cornered the Laguna Verde nuclear plant | Economy”, Digis Mak, 1 February 2021,
see https://digismak.com/the-damage-cornered-the-laguna-verde-nuclear-plant-economy/, accessed 26 June 2021.

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Iran
In 2011, Iran started up the first nuclear power reactor in the Middle East, the 915-MW
Bushehr-1, which became operational, 34 years after construction began. Construction on one
other reactor, Bushehr-2, has restarted in November 2019.
In 2020, Bushehr-1 generated 5.8 TWh of electricity, this compares with 5.9 TWh in 2019, andis 1.7 percent of the total electricity generated in Iran, compared with 1.8 percent in 2019.
Until Bushehr-2 comes online, the nuclear share is expected to decline as Iran ramps up its
capacity of other sources to meet increasing electricity demand. Despite Iran’s heavy economic
and political investments in the nuclear program, nuclear power contributes less than 2 percent
to the country’s electricity generating capacity and production.
Compared to other countries in the region, Iran went beyond the mere goal of acquiring nuclear
power reactors by investing in nuclear fuel chain activities such as uranium mining, enrichment
and fuel manufacturing. Although Iran possesses the capabilities to produce its own enricheduranium, under the restrictions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) it was notsupposed to exceed Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) levels. On 13 April 2021, Iran announced
that it was proceeding with plans to enrich uranium to 60 percent (U-235), which exceeds the
20 percent threshold and is classified as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU).1422 It remains to be
seen what happens now with the agreement following the election of U.S. President Biden andattempts to secure the survival of the JCPOA.
Beyond Bushehr-1, in November 2014, Iran’s Nuclear Power Production and Development
Co. (NPPD) and Rosatom subsidiary Atomstroyexport signed a contract to restart andcomplete construction of Bushehr-2 and -3. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
projected that Units 2 and 3 would be completed within a 10-year timeline and cost around
US$10 billion.1423
In terms of the second reactor at Bushehr, new basemat concrete for the reactor building waspoured on 10 November 2019, according to the AEOI.1424 Excavation for this foundation started
on 31 October 2017. Iranian authorities and Rosatom stated that Bushehr-2 and -3 are to becompleted in 2024 and 2026 respectively.1425
Unit 2 was part of the original construction work on the Bushehr plant, which started in 1976.
In fact, in 1994, the IAEA still listed both Units 1 and 2 as “under construction”.1426 The NPDDAtomstroyexport contract signed in November 2014, included the design and construction as1422 - Robert E Kelly, “Why is Iran producing 60 per cent-enriched uranium?”, SIPRI, 27 April 2021,
see https://www.sipri.org/commentary/essay/2021/why-iran-producing-60-cent-enriched-uranium, accessed 19 July 2021.
1423 - Darrell Proctor, “Iran Expands Plans for Nuclear Power”, POWER Magazine, 1 May 2019,see https://www.powermag.com/iran-expands-plans-for-nuclear-power/, accessed 13 April 2020.
1424 - AEOI, “Concrete pouring of the Second unit of nuclear power plant held in Bushehr”, 11 December 2019, see https://aeoi.
org.ir/en/portal/home/?news/45799/69280/294254/concrete-pouring-of-the-second-unit-of-nuclear-power-plant-held-in-bushehr,
accessed 19 July 2021.
1425 - WNN, “Rosatom committed to Iranian plant project”, 9 May 2019, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rosatomcommitted-to-Iranian-plant-project, accessed 19 July 2021.
1426 - WNISR, “Iran: Construction Restart of Busheer-2”, World Nuclear Industry Status Report, 14 November 2019,see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Iran-Construction-Restart-of-Busheer-2.html, accessed 19 July 2021.

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well as commencing operations of the two units, each with a capacity of 1057 MW electricity
output. The reactor design for Unit 2 is the VVER V-446.
In 2016, Ali Akbar Salehi, Head of the AEOI, mentioned negotiations with China to build two
more power plants in Darkhovain and on the Makran coast.1427 Since then, however, there has
been no progress reported on these plans and their schedule, which are likely to be delayed
further given the current economic and political environment. It is unclear whether a recent
bilateral agreement between China and Iran will eventually lead to additional nuclear plant
construction.1428

Bushehr Shutdown
On 20 June 2021, the AEOI announced the emergency shutdown of Bushehr-1 due to a technicaldefect. No further details were provided at that time.1429 On 22 June 2021, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that it had been informed by the AEOI that atechnical problem occurred in the electrical generator of the plant, and after resolving it, theplant will be reconnected to the national electricity grid.1430 On 23 June 2021, the Noor News
website, which is close to Iran’s National Security Council, reported a “sabotage operation”
against one of Iran’s nuclear energy buildings.1431 Iran’s Press TV network quoted a security
source as “The sabotage attack on a building of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has
been thwarted.”1432
The director of the AEOI, Ali Akbar Salehi, noted on 26 June 2021 that because of U.S. sanctions
imposed on Iran after the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran has not been able to pay Russia
500 million euros [US$2021597 million] it owes for two other power plants under construction
and the fuel for the Bushehr power plant but that it would be paid.1433
The shutdown of Bushehr occurred when electricity demand was exceeding supply capacity by
about 11,000 MW, forcing Tehran to impose unannounced power cuts for hours at a time when
the need for air conditioning soars amid temperatures hitting close to 50 degrees Celsius on adaily basis.1434

1427 - Tasnim News Agency, “China to Build 2 Nuclear Power Plants in Iran: AEOI Chief”, 19 January 2016, see https://www.
tasnimnews.com/en/news/2016/01/19/975906/china-to-build-2-nuclear-power-plants-in-iran-aeoi-chief, accessed 19 July 2021.
1428 - Farnaz Fassihi and Steven Lee Myers, “China, With $400 Billion Iran Deal, Could Deepen Influence in Mideast”, The New YorkTimes, 27 March 2021, see https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/world/middleeast/china-iran-deal.html, accessed 19 July 2021.
1429 - AEOI, “
see https://www.aeoi.org.ir, accessed 19 July 2021.

”, Press Release, 20 June 2021,

1430 - IAEA, “Iran says temporary shutdown of Bushehr NPP due to technical problem in electrical generator”, 22 June 2021,
see https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/iran-says-temporary-shutdown-of-bushehr-npp-due-to-technical-problem-inelectrical-generator, accessed 19 July 2021.
1431 - Cyrus Yaqubi, “Iran: What Is Behind Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant Shutdown? – OpEd”, Eurasia Review, 24 June 2021,
see https://www.eurasiareview.com/24062021-iran-what-is-behind-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant-shutdown-oped/,
accessed 19 July 2021.
1432 - Ibidem.
1433 - Iran International, “Iran Ready To Pay 500 Million Euro Debt To Russia For Nuclear Reactor”, 27 June 2021,
see https://iranintl.com/en/world/iran-ready-pay-500-million-euro-debt-russia-nuclear-reactor, accessed 19 July 2021.
1434 - Aresu Eqbali and Claudia Carpenter, “Iran’s summer of power cuts could be worst yet with new capacity on hold”, S&P Global,
14 July 2021, see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/071421-feature-irans-summer-of-power-cutscould-be-worst-yet-with-new-capacity-on-hold, accessed 19 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

On 3 July 2021, state-run power company TAVANIR announced that Bushehr-1 had restarted.1435
Saudi Arabia has in the past raised concerns that potential radioactive leakage from theBushehr plant could endanger the Gulf, including air, food and water supplies. Saudi Arabia,
the UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have voiced their concerns
about Bushehr’s safety on various occasions, especially after earthquakes.1436 In March 2020,
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based international organizations,dismissed the Saudi concern as an attempt to politicize technical issues and maintained thatthe plant is meeting international safety standards.1437 Gharibabadi pointed to the IAEA’s
Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) mission at Bushehr in February and March 2020,
the result of which was “satisfactory”, adding that the IAEA delegation concluded that “Iran’s
nuclear safety system has the competence and capability to monitor nuclear activities”.1438

Pakistan
Pakistan operates six nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 2.3 GW. This includes
Kanupp-2, which was connected to the grid in March 2021 and is the first Hualong-One reactor
to become operational outside of China.1439 The sister unit, Kanupp-3, is scheduled for operationin the first quarter of 2022.1440 Nuclear electricity production in Pakistan has increased slightly
from 2019 to 2020, from 9 TWh to 9.6 TWh, with the share of electricity from nuclear power
plants increasing from 6.6 percent to 7.1 percent. Both values are new records for Pakistan.
Kanupp-2 and Kanupp-3 are supplied by the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) on
a turnkey basis and will be operated by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Corporation (PAEC).1441
Costs of these two reactors have been reported as being around US$10 billion.1442 These havecontributed to Pakistan’s major debt problem, which has in turn afflicted the country’s power
sector.1443

1435 - Reuters, “Iran restarts Bushehr nuclear power plant after overhaul-state media”, 3 July 2021, see https://www.reuters.com/world/
middle-east/iran-restarts-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant-after-overhaul-state-media-2021-07-03/, accessed 19 July 2021.
1436 - Elizabeth Dickinson, “UAE and Saudi Arabia call on Iran to allay nuclear plant fears”, The National, 7 June 2013,see https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/uae-and-saudi-arabia-call-on-iran-to-allay-nuclear-plant-fears-1.478749;
and Amir Taheri, “Iran Earthquake Raises Concern over Nuclear Plant”, Asharq AL-awsat, 16 November 2017,see https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1085541/iran-earthquake-raises-concern-over-nuclear-plant, both accessed 19 July 2021.
1437 - Tehran Times, “Iran dismisses Saudi claims over safety at Bushehr plant”, 10 March 2020, see https://www.tehrantimes.com/
news/445953/Iran-dismisses-Saudi-claims-over-safety-at-Bushehr-plant, accessed 19 July 2021.
1438 - Ibidem.
1439 - WNISR, “Grid Connection of Chinese Reactor in Pakistan”, World Nuclear Industry Status Report, 20 March 2021,
see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Grid-Connection-of-Chinese-Reactor-in-Pakistan.html, accessed 29 May 2021.
1440 - The News, “PM Imran Khan inaugurates 1,100 MW Chinese-built nuclear power plant”, 21 May 2021, see https://www.thenews.
com.pk/latest/837916-pm-imran-khan-inaugurates-1100-mw-chinese-built-nuclear-power-plant, accessed 24 May 2021.
1441 - WNISR, “Grid Connection of Chinese Reactor in Pakistan”, March 2021, op. cit.
1442 - Ayaz Gul, “Pakistan’s China-Built Nuclear Reactor Starts Operation”, Voice of America, 19 May 2021,
see https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/pakistans-china-built-nuclear-reactor-starts-operation, accessed 24 May 2021.
1443 - Vaishali Basu Sharma, “As Pakistan’s Energy Crisis Worsens, Have Chinese Investments Failed Islamabad?”, The Wire,
2 June 2020, see https://thewire.in/south-asia/pakistan-energy-crisis-cpec, accessed 24 May 2021.

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PAEC appears to be exploring the possibility of building further Hualong One reactors at
Chashma, the second nuclear power plant site in the country.1444 This site already hosts four
Chinese designed CNP-300 reactors. The longer-term goal is to expand nuclear energy toreach a total capacity of 8.8 GW by 2030.
In parallel, Pakistan has been rapidly expanding its renewable energy capacity. Over the past
decade, total renewable capacity in Pakistan has grown from 7 GW in 2011 to just under 12.4
GW in 2020. Wind and solar capacity have grown from around 0.06 GW and 0.02 GW in 2011
to 1.2 GW and 0.7 GW respectively in 2020. Although 2020 saw very little increase in capacity,
Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for the country to produce 60 percent of its electrical
power from renewable sources by 2030.1445

South Korea
See Focus Countries – South Korea Focus.

TaiwanSee Focus Countries – Taiwan Focus.

United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the first Arab country to establish a nuclear power
program. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) was founded in 2009 and,in December of that year, signed a US$20 billion contract with the Korea Electric Power
Corporation (KEPCO) to build four APR-1400 reactors at Barakah, in the Al Dhafra regionof Abu Dhabi.1446 The four units have a total generation capacity of 5.6 GW. Nawah Energy
company, the nuclear energy plant operator in UAE, was established in 2016; ENEC owns
82 percent of the company while KEPCO owns the remaining 18 percent. On behalf of Nawah,
ENEC applied for operating licenses for the first two units for Barakah in 2015.
According to plans from 2010, construction was to start in 2012 at a rate of one reactor per
year, and for the four units to start commercial operations at a rate of one reactor per year
starting in 2017.1447 But, as has been the case with nuclear projects around the world, the project
has been delayed, and that despite the UAE’s immense financial resources and access to global
expertise. The first nuclear unit entered commercial operation only in April 2021, four years

1444 - APP, “PAEC to enhance nuclear energy share to 8,800 MW by 2030”, The Nation, 12 June 2020, see https://nation.com.pk/12Jun-2020/paec-to-enhance-nuclear-energy-share-to-8-800-mw-by-2030, accessed 24 May 2021.
1445 - Zofeen T. Ebrahim, “Pakistan faces an unexpected dilemma: too much electricity”, Reuters, 24 February 2021,
see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-energy-climate-change-featur-idUSKBN2AO27C, accessed 24 May 2021.
1446 - WNN, “Construction under way at Barakah”, 19 July 2012, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Constructionunder-way-at-Barakah, accessed 1 August 2021.
1447 - WNISR, “Barakah, UAE: Grid Connection of First Commercial Reactor in the Arab World”, 21 August 2021,
see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Barakah-UAE-Grid-Connection-of-First-Commercial-Reactor-in-the-Arab-World.html,
accessed 1 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 later than planned.1448 It had earlier been connected to the grid in August 2020 and reached fullpower in December 2020.1449
As discussed in earlier WNISR editions, the delays are due to four main factors: challenges
in establishing and training a domestic workforce; the discovery of voids in the containmentbuildings of Units 2 and 3; delays in commissioning reactors in South Korea; and quality
assurance scandals within South Korea’s nuclear industry. Construction of Unit 2 wascompleted in July 2020 and a 60-year operating license was issued for the unit in March 2021.1450
As of that date, construction of Units 3 and 4 are said to be 94 percent and 87 percent complete,respectively.1451
The Barakah project is financed through a joint venture agreement between KEPCO and ENEC.
The 2009 announcement by ENEC included the statement that the “value of the contract
for the construction, commissioning and fuel loads for four units equaled approximately
US$20 billion, with a high percentage of the contract being offered under a fixed-pricearrangement”.1452 By 2018, as the project was getting seriously delayed, the cost estimate went
up to US$24.4 billion.1453 There is no publicly available revision of the full cost following thefirst unit getting completed.
Construction of the Barakah nuclear plant has raised a number of different concerns for theregion.1454 In December 2017, a Houthi rebel group from Yemen claimed to have launcheda missile at Barakah; the claim has not been supported by evidence and UAE officials havedenied the news.1455 A different concern was expressed in a 2019-letter from Qatar’s Foreign
Affairs ministry to the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano: “Qatar believes that the lack of
any international co-operation with neighboring states regarding disaster planning, health andsafety and the protection of the environment pose a serious threat to the stability of the region
and its environment”.1456

1448 - WNN, “UAE’s first nuclear unit starts commercial operation”, 6 April 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
UAE-s-first-nuclear-unit-starts-commercial-operati, accessed 12 April 2021.
1449 - WNN, “First UAE nuclear reactor reaches full power”, 7 December 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/FirstUAE-nuclear-reactor-reaches-full-power.
1450 - WNN, “UAE completes construction of Barakah 2”, 15 July 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UAEcompletes-construction-of-Barakah-unit-2; and WNN, “UAE regulator issues second Barakah operating licence”, 9 March 2021,
see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UAE-regulator-issues-second-operating-licence, both accessed 1 August 2021.
1451 - WNN, “UAE Regulator Issues Second Barakah Operating Licence”, 9 March 2021, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
UAE-regulator-issues-second-operating-licence, accessed 1 August 2021.
1452 - ENEC, “UAE Selects Korea Electric Power Corp, as Prime Team as Prime Contractor for Peaceful Nuclear Power”, Emirates
Nuclear Energy Corporation, 27 December 2009, see https://www.enec.gov.ae/news/uae-selects-korea-electric-power-corp-as-primeteam-as-prime-contractor-fo/, accessed 22 April 2018.
1453 - Reuters, “UAE’s first nuclear reactor delayed until 2019”, as published on Gulf Business, 22 March 2018,see http://gulfbusiness.com/uaes-first-nuclear-reactor-delayed-2019/, accessed 23 March 2018.
1454 - Patricia Sabga, “Nuclear Gulf: Experts sound the alarm over UAE nuclear reactors”, Al Jazeera, 15 July 2020, see https://www.
aljazeera.com/ajimpact/nuclear-gulf-experts-sound-alarm-uae-nuclear-reactors-200628194524692.html, accessed 14 July 2020.
1455 - Ali Ahmad, “A Yemeni rebel claim highlights the risk of nuclear power in the Middle East”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
12 August 2017, see https://thebulletin.org/2017/12/a-yemeni-rebel-claim-highlights-the-risk-of-nuclear-power-in-the-middle-east/.
1456 - Geert De Clercq, “Exclusive: Qatar asks IAEA to intervene over ‘threat’ posed by UAE nuclear plant”, Reuters, 20 March 2019,see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-emirates-nuclearpower-exclusive/exclusive-qatar-asks-iaea-to-intervene-over-threatposed-by-uae-nuclear-plant-idUSKCN1R120L, accessed 9 April 2019.

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Meanwhile, UAE has been increasing its renewable generation capacity rapidly. Total capacity
went from 0.6 GW in 2018 to 2.5 GW in 2020, almost entirely composed of solar energy.1457 Thisis expected to rise to 9 GW by the end of 2025.1458 According to UAE’s “Energy Strategy 2050”,
the country aims to increase the contribution of low-carbon energy in the country’s primaryenergy mix to 50 percent, out of which 44 percent to be derived from renewables and 6 percent
from nuclear power.1459

EUROPEAN
UNION (EU27)
The EU27 member states have gone through three nuclear construction waves (see Figure 68)—
two small ones in the 1960s and the 1970s and a larger one in the 1980s (mainly in France).
But since then, in thirty years, only 14 reactors were connected to the EU27-grid, half of themin France, the rest in Eastern and Central Europe. Only two reactors were started-up overthe past 20 years, all in Eastern Europe (one each in the Czech Republic and Romania). Since
Cernavoda-2 was connected to the grid in Romania in 2007, no other reactor was started up,
but 20 reactors were permanently closed.
Figure 68 · Nuclear Reactors Startups and Closures in the EU27 1959–1 July 2021

Reactor Startups and Closures in the EU27
in Units, from 1959 to 1 July 2021
YearlyBalance

15

Reactor Startups
Reactor Closures© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

10

Temelin-1

5Temelin-2
Cernavoda-2

0

1959

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

-5

-10

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

1457 - IRENA, “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021”, International Renewable Energy Agency, March 2021, see https://www.irena.org/-/
media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2021/Apr/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2021.pdf, accessed 4 May 2021.
1458 - Rystad Energy, “It’s raining solar panels in the UAE: Renewable capacity set to increase fourfold to 9 GW by end-2025”,
Press Release, 9 February 2021, see https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents/news/press-releases/its-raining-solar-panels-in-theuae-renewable-capacity-set-to-increase-fourfold-to-9-gw-by-end-2025/, accessed 8 May 2021.
1459 - United Arab Emirate Government, “UAE Energy Strategy 2050”, 1 May 2021, see https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/strategiesinitiatives-and-awards/federal-governments-strategies-and-plans/uae-energy-strategy-2050, accessed 10 May 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 355

There are only four reactors under construction, two in Slovakia (since 1985) and one each inFrance (since 2007) and Finland (since 2005).
As Figure 69 shows, 106 reactors are operating in the EU27 as of 1 July 2021, thirty less than thehistoric maximum of 136 units in 1989. The vast majority of the operating facilities, 87 units orover 80 percent, are located in seven of the western countries—with 56 units, over half, inFrance alone—and only 19 in the six newer member states with nuclear power.
Figure 69 · Nuclear Reactors and Net Operating Capacity in the EU27

Nuclear Reactors and Net Operating Capacity in the EU 27
in Units and GWe, from 1959 to 1 July 2021

1989
Maximum Number
of Reactors: 136

2002
Maximum Operating
Capacity: 124.5 GWe

Number of Reactors

7/2021106 Reactors
104.3 GWe

120

GWe
120

Reactors in Operation
Operating Capacity

90

90© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

60

60

30

30

0

1959

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

7/21

0

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

In the EU27, in 2020, nuclear plants have generated 652 TWh, an 11-percent decrease comparedto the previous year. While the nuclear share in net power production is not yet available from
IAEA-PRIS or Eurostat, BP indicates a 24.8 percent share in gross generation (26.4 percent in2019).1460
In the absence of any significant delivering new-build program, the average age of nuclear
power plants keeps increasing and at mid-2021 stands at 36 years (see Figure 70). The age
distribution shows that now over 86 percent—92 of 106—of the EU’s operating nuclear
reactors have been in operation for 31 years and beyond.
The closure of Ringhals-1, in December 2020, brings the number of permanently closed
reactors in the EU27 to 69 (60 in Western Europe, of which half in Germany).

1460 - BP, “Statistical Review of World Energy – Statistical Workbook”, July 2021, op. cit.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 356

Figure 70 · Age Distribution of the EU27 Reactor Fleet

Age of Nuclear Fleet in the EU27
as of 1 July 2021

77

11
3

106 Reactors
Mean Age
35.9 Years

15

Reactor Age
11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

WESTERN EUROPE
As of 1 July 2021, 104 nuclear power reactors operated in Western Europe (including U.K. andSwitzerland), 56 units fewer than in the peak years 1988/89. In WNISR2020, the U.K. had threereactors in LTO: one was restarted since and two have been permanently closed. One reactor
was closed in the EU27, Ringhals-1 in Sweden in the second half-year of 2020.
With the U.K. and Switzerland operating respectively four and three reactors over 41 years
old— one of which the 51-year-old Beznau reactor—the average age of operating reactors inWestern Europe reaches 37.4 years (see Figure 71).
Figure 71 · Age Distribution of the Western European Reactor Fleet (incl. Switzerland and the U.K.)

Age of Western European Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

74
Reactor Age
21–30 Years

8

104 Reactors
Mean Age37.4 Years

21
1

31–40 Years
41–50 Years
51 Years and Over
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

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Four reactors are currently under construction, two in the U.K (Hinkley Point C-1 and C-2) and
one each in Finland (Olkiluoto-3) and France (Flamanville-3). All are European Pressurized
Water Reactors (EPR) and all are many years behind their initial schedule and billions of Euros
over budget (details are discussed in other chapters of the report).

Belgium
In 2020, nuclear electricity generation continued the fluctuations it has been undergoing overthe past decade, dropping 21 percent after recovering with a 52-percent increase in 2019 after
a particularly poor performance in 2018. In the first half of 2021, availability of nuclear has
increased by half over the first semester 2020. Thus, the oscillating pattern seems to continue.
Belgium operates seven pressurized-water reactors that have generated 32.8 TWh in 2020,
about one third below the maximum of 46.7 TWh reached in 1999. Nuclear power contributed
39.1 percent of Belgium’s electricity in 2020, a drop of 8.5 percentage points over 2019, while
the maximum was 67.2 percent in 1986.
The average age of the Belgian fleet is 41.3.
Legally the country remains bound to a nuclear phase-out target of 2025. In January 2003,
legislation was passed that requires the closure of all of Belgium’s nuclear plants after 40 yearsof operation, so based on their startup dates, plants would be closed progressively between
2015 and 2025 (see Table 20). Practically, however, after lifetime extension to 50 years was
granted for three reactors, five of the seven reactors would go offline in the single year of 2025.
This represents an increasingly challenging policy goal.
The Belgian government confirmed the nuclear phase-out date when on 30 March 2018 it
presented the federal energy strategy.
Table 20 – Belgian Nuclear Fleet (as of 1 July 2021)
Net Capacity(MW)

Grid Connection

Operating Age(as of 1 July 2021)

End of License(Latest Closure Date)

Doel-1433

28/08/1974

46.8

10-year lifetime extension
to 15 February 2025

Doel-2433

21/08/1975

45.9

10-year lifetime extension
to 1 December 2025

Doel-3

1 006

23/06/1982

39.0

1 October 2022

Doel-4

1 038

08/04/1985

36.2

1 July 2025

ReactorTihange-1

962

07/03/1975

46.3

10-year lifetime extension
to 1 October 2025

Tihange-2

1 008

13/10/1982

38.7

1 February 2023

Tihange-3

1 038

15/06/1985

36.0

1 September 2025

Sources: WNISR, 2021; Belgian Law of 28 June 2015; Electrabel/GDF-Suez, 20151461

1461 - Moniteur Belge, “Loi modifiant la loi du 31 janvier 2003 sur la sortie progressive de l’énergie nucléaire à des fins de productionindustrielle d’électricité afin de garantir la sécurité d’approvisionnement sur le plan énergétique”, N.174, Second Edition, 6 July 2015
(in French and Dutch), see http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/mopdf/2015/07/06_2.pdf.
• For Doel-1&-2, see Electrabel, GDF Suez/Engie, “Note de Presse—Sécurité d’approvisionnement et transition énergétique—Accord
sur la prolongation de Doel 1 et Doel 2”, Press Release,1 December 2015 (in French) and Engie Electrabel, “Doel Nuclear Power Plant—
Profile of the 4 units”, Updated 7 August 2017, see http://corporate.engie-electrabel.be/local-player/nuclear-3/doel;• For Tihange-1, see Engie/Electrabel, “Tihange”, Undated, see http://corporate.engie-electrabel.be/local-player/nuclear-3/tihange;
all accessed 23 June 2019.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

National Energy and Climate Plan (PNEC)The National Energy and Climate Plan (Plan National Énergie-Climat or PNEC) was passed inlate 2019 and defines the strategy of compensation for the 6 GW of nuclear power that will beclosed by the end of 2025. A capacity market shall attract the necessary investments into othergeneration capacity and flexibility options. The renewable energy target is set at 40 percent by
2030. The interconnection with neighboring countries, already on a high level, will be further
improved.
In its assessment of the PNEC, the European Commission notes: “On energy security, Belgium
has largely addressed the recommendation to specify the measures supporting the energy
security objectives. In particular, the final plan better outlines the reform of the electricity
market linked to the phase-out of the nuclear fleet. It also indicates that Belgium will implement
the reforms in its market reform plan under the Electricity Regulation in a timely manner. (…)
To replace 6 GW of nuclear capacity, the energy production mix is expected to make use offlexible capacity, storage and renewable energy sources.” However, the Commission also stated“An increase in the country’s energy dependence is expected after this phase-out.”1462

Lifetime Extensions
In summer 2012, the operator identified an unprecedented number of hydrogen-induced crack
indications in the pressure vessels of Doel-3 and Tihange-2, with respectively over 8,000 and
2,000—which later increased to over 13,000 and over 3,000—previously undetected defects.
In spite of widespread concerns, and although no failsafe explanation about the negative initial
fracture-toughness test results was given, on 17 November 2015, the Federal Agency for Nuclear
Control (FANC) authorized the restart of Doel-3 and Tihange-2 (see previous WNISR editions
for details).
The Belgian government did not wait for the outcome of the Doel-3/Tihange-2 issue anddecided in March 2015 to draft legislation to extend the lifetime of Doel-1 and Doel-2 by ten
years to 2025. The law went into effect on 6 July 2015. On 22 December 2015, FANC authorized
the lifetime extension and restart of Doel-1 and -2.
On 6 January 2016, two Belgian NGOs filed a complaint against the 28 June 2015 law with
the Belgian Constitutional Court, arguing in particular that the lifetime extension had beenauthorized without a legally binding public enquiry. In a 22 June 2017 pre-ruling decision, theCourt addressed a series of questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in particularconcerning the interpretation of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions, as well as the European
legislation.
On 29 July 2019, the ECJ stated that the lifetime extension of a reactor
must be regarded as being of a comparable scale, in terms of risks of environmental impact,
to the initial commissioning of those power stations. Consequently, it is mandatory for such

1462 - European Commission, “Assessment of the final national energy and climate plan of Belgium”, Commission Staff Working
Document, SWD(2020) 900 final, 14 October 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 a project to be the subject of an environmental impact assessment provided for by the EIA
directive.1463

In addition, as the Doel-1 and -2 reactors are particularly close to the Belgian-Dutch border,“such a project must also be subject to the transboundary assessment procedure”. The
judgement permitted though to delay the implementation of the order, if a national court
considers it isjustified by overriding considerations relating to the need to exclude a genuine and serious
threat of interruption to the electricity supply in the Member State concerned, which cannot
be addressed by other means or alternatives, inter alia in the context of the internal market.
That maintenance may only last for the amount of time strictly necessary in order to remedy
that illegality.1464

On 5 March 2020, the Belgian Constitutional Court nullified the lifetime extension legislationin its entirety but gave the government until the end of 2022 “at the latest” to carry out anappropriate Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and a transboundary consultation.1465
The Belgian government argued that the lifetime extension “plays a vital role in securing
its supply of electricity until 2025” and sent a notification for consultation to a number ofEuropean governments inviting them to comment on the “project” (that is the well engaged
lifetime extension of Doel-1 and -2).1466
The Belgian precedent will have significant consequences on the lifetime extension projects in
European Union Member States that now will all have to carry out full-scale EIAs and organize
transboundary consultations prior to granting permission for lifetime extensions.
In the meantime, Electrabel had signaled that it wished to extend the lifetime of two or threeunits beyond 2025 and warned that it would need legislation to be adapted by the end of theyear 2020.1467 This did not happen and Engie decided “to stop preparation works that would
allow for the 20-year extension of two nuclear units beyond 2025”.1468
Part of the nuclear phase-out strategy is the buildup of offshore wind capacities. As of mid2021, Belgium reaches 2.3 GW installed capacity and outranks Denmark as 4th offshore windenergy operator worldwide behind the U.K., Germany, and China. Capacity increased by
45 percent in 2020 alone. In 2020, offshore wind farms covered 8.4 percent of the Belgian

1463 - ECJ, “The Belgian law extending the operating life of nuclear power stations Doel 1 and Doel 2 was adopted without the required
environmental assessments being carried out first”, Press Release, 29 July 2020.
1464 - Ibidem.
1465 - Cour constitutionnelle, “La Cour annule la loi qui prolonge l’activité des centrales nucléaires de Doel 1 et 2, en l’absence d’étudespréalables d’incidences environnementales, mais en maintient les effets jusqu’au plus tard le 31 décembre 2022” , Press Release,
5 March 2020 ; for the text of the judgement see Cour constitutionnelle, “Arrêt 34/2020”, 5 March 2020 (in French),see https://www.const-court.be/public/f/2020/2020-034f.pdf, accessed 8 August 2020.
1466 - Marie-Christine Marghem, Letter dated 13 August 2020, Ministry of Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development,
Belgium.
1467 - Montel, “Electrabel réitère son appel à prolonger le nucléaire belge”, 28 January 2020, see http://www.montelnews.com/fr/story/
electrabel-ritre-son-appel-à-prolonger-le-nuclaire-belge/1082410, accessed 8 August 2020.
1468 - Engie, “2020 Management Report and Annual Consolidated Financial Statements”, March 2021, see https://www.engie.com/
sites/default/files/assets/documents/2021-02/ENGIE_2020_Management_report_and_annual_consolidated_financial_statements.pdf,
accessed 1 August 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 electricity consumption, and they are supposed to increase their share to 10 percent over a fullyear of operation.1469

Finland(See Focus Countries – Finland Focus.)

France(See Focus Countries – France Focus.)

Germany
Germany’s nuclear fleet generated 61 TWh net in 2020, a 14 percent decline over the rather
stable past three years, and only 37.5 percent of the peak generation of 162.4 TWh in 2001.
Nuclear plants provided 11.3 percent of Germany’s electricity generation, representing little
more than one-third of the historic maximum of 30.8 percent in 1997.
One more reactor, the 1400-MWe Philippsburg-2 PWR, was closed at the end of 2019,according to the nuclear phase-out legislation that will see three of the six remaining reactors
closed by the end of 2021 and the other by the end of 2022 (see Table 21 for details). While thenuclear phase-out has proceeded smoothly so far, independent experts are warning that thechallenge with six large reactors leaving the grid within one year has not been compensated.
“For renewables to be able to cover the nuclear power volumes that will soon be eliminated,
more renewables must be quickly added”, stresses Agora Energiewende.1470
Germany decided immediately after 3/11 to close eight of the oldest1471 of its then 17 operating
reactors and to phase out the remaining nine by the end of 2022, effectively reactivating a“consensus agreement” negotiated a decade earlier. This choice was implemented by aconservative, pro-business, and, until the Fukushima disaster, very pro-nuclear Government,
led by physicist Chancellor Angela Merkel, with no political party dissenting, which makes it
virtually irreversible under any political constellation. On 6 June 2011, the Bundestag passed
a seven-part energy transition legislation almost by consensus and it came into force on
6 August 2011 (see earlier WNISR editions for details).
With the near completion of the nuclear power phase-out, the question about the fate offacilities other than nuclear reactors gains ground. There is an operating uranium enrichment
facility in Gronau and fuel fabrication in Lingen. The Ministry for the Environment, Nature
Protection and Nuclear Safety, released an official statement on the tenth anniversary of
the beginning of the Fukushima disaster asking for the closure of both facilities “in order to1469 - BOP, “First offshore wind energy zone in the Belgian North Sea fully and on time completed”, Belgian Offshore Platform,
3 January 2021, see https://www.belgianoffshoreplatform.be/en/news/first-offshore-wind-energy-zone-in-the-belgian-north-sea-fullyand-on-time-completed/, accessed 1 August 2021.
1470 - Patrick Graichen and Fabian Hein, “10 years after Fukushima: consequences of the nuclear phase-out for the energy transition”,
Agora Energiewende, March 2021.
1471 - Including the Krümmel and Brunsbüttel reactors that by then had not generated power for almost two and four years
respectively.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 terminate the unbearable situation that foreign old nuclear power plants close to the border
are operated with fuel assemblies of German production”.1472
In addition, the German Government wishes to team up with other non-nuclear or nuclear
phase-out countries to actively promote nuclear phase-out in the EU, eliminate lifetime
extensions of operating reactors, and oppose the use of EU funds for nuclear projects.1473
Renewables generated 251 TWh or 45.4 percent of gross national electricity in 2020. More thanhalf of this is from wind power with 131 TWh, which, since 2017, outgenerates nuclear power.1474
To put this into perspective, provisional figures for 2020 show respective shares of 19.3 percent
for German renewables,1475 for the first time exceeding the 16.8 percent for French nuclear of
final energy consumption.1476 As renewables accelerate their expansion beyond the power sector
throughout the German economy, their share in final energy has increased by 7.6 percentage
points since 2010, while the French nuclear share remained stable (16.9 percent in 2010).
However, both figures indicate how modest the contribution of the respective technologies tothe overall energy sector remains, with oil remaining the dominant primary source in bothcountries.
Coal-based electricity generation in Germany dropped by large margins over the period
2015‑2020—hard coal by 63.9 percent and lignite by 40.7 percent, while natural gas generation
increased by 47.4 percent. In 2020, renewables were again by far the largest contributor
to the power mix (gross) and supplied twice as much as lignite (16 percent) and hard coal(7.4 percent) together, while natural gas combustion for power was at an all-time high andcontributed 16 percent.
The move away from nuclear and coal did not have any major adverse effects on the wholesale
power prices. Agora Energiewende notes: “In recent years, the electricity exchange price inGermany has always been lower than in France, the country with the most nuclear power
plants.”1477
In 2017, Germany’s net power exports hit a record at 55 TWh. But by 2020, net exports had
dropped again to 21 TWh.
Figure 72 summarizes the main developments of the German power system between 2010—
the last year prior to the post-3/11 closure of the eight oldest nuclear reactors—and 2019.

1472 - Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit, “12 Punkte für die Vollendung des Atomausstiegs – die
Position des Bundesumweltministeriums”, 11 March 2021.
1473 - Ibidem.
1474 - Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, “Development of Renewable Energy Sources in Germany in the year 2020”,
February 2021, see https://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/development-of-renewable-energy-sources-ingermany-2020.pdf, accessed 3 August 2021.
1475 - Share calculated according to EU-Directive 2009/28/EC. The share calculated according to German Energiekonzept is
19.6 percent, see Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, “Development of Renewable Energy Sources in Germany in theyear 2020”, op. cit.
1476 - General Commission for Sustainable Development, “Bilan énergétique de la France en 2020–Données provisoires”, French
Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, April 2021.
1477 - Patrick Graichen and Fabian Hein, “10 years after Fukushima: consequences of the nuclear phase-out for the energy transition”,
op. cit.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 362

Figure 72 · Main Developments of the German Power System Between 2010 and 2020

Main Evolution of the German Power System Between 2010 and 2020
in TWhNet Export
Increase
5

Nuclear
Reduction-76

Consumption
Decrease-67
Renewables 200
Increase
146
150

Fossil Fuel
Reduction-130
Fossil fuel and nuclear
generation reductions...

... are covered byconsumption decrease andrenewable production increase.

© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

100
50
0

Sources: WNISR based on AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB), 2021

It illustrates that Germany is making rapid progress on the double phase-out of nuclear
power and coal. Renewable electricity generation (+146 TWh) and the reduction in domestic
consumption (–67 TWh) were more than sufficient to compensate for the reduction of
nuclear generation (76 TWh), and a dramatic reduction in power generation from fossil fuels(–130 TWh). Within the fossil-fuel generating segment:
ɆɆ Lignite peaked in 2013 and then declined—especially in 2019–20— to 37 percent below the2010 level;ɆɆ Hard coal also peaked in 2013 then dropped to 64 percent below the 2010-level;ɆɆ Natural gas fluctuated since 2010 and peaked in 2020 at 2.6 percent above the 2010-level;ɆɆ Oil was insignificant and dropped further to 52 percent below the 2010-level representing
0.7 percent of gross power generation.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020-results are not fully representative. In the first halfof 2021, fossil fuel use was back up. Consumption of the most polluting resource (lignite) was
up by about one third compared to the first half of 2020. However, the increase is mainly due tothe exceptionally low wind-power output, which remained 20 percent below the performance
during the same period in 2020. In the longer trend, lignite consumption continues to fall as it
remains 12 percent below the 2019 first half-year result.

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Table 21 – Legal Closure Dates for German Nuclear Reactors 2011–2022
Reactor Name
(Type, Net Capacity)

Owner/Operator

First Grid
Connection

End of License(latest closure date)

Biblis-A (PWR, 1167 MW)
Biblis-B (PWR, 1240 MW)
Brunsbüttel (BWR, 771 MW)
Isar-1 (BWR, 878 MW)
Krümmel (BWR, 1346 MW)
Neckarwestheim-1 (PWR, 785 MW)
Philippsburg-1 (BWR, 890 MW)
Unterweser (BWR, 1345 MW)

RWE
RWE
KKW Brunsbüttela
PreussenElektra
KKW Krümmelb
EnBW
EnBW
PreussenElektra

1974
1976
1976
1977
1983
1976
1979
1978

6 August 2011

Grafenrheinfeld (PWR, 1275 MW)

PreussenElektra

1981

31 December 2015
(closed 27 June 2015)

KKW Gundremmingenc

1984

31 December 2017

Gundremmingen-B (BWR, 1284 MW)
Philippsburg-2 (PWR, 1402 MW)

EnBW

1984

31 December 2019

Brokdorf (PWR, 1410 MW)
Grohnde (PWR, 1360 MW)
Gundremmingen-C (BWR, 1288 MW)

PreussenElektra/Vattenfalld
PreussenElektra
KKW Gundremmingen

1986
1984
1984

31 December 2021

Isar-2 (PWR, 1410 MW)
Emsland (PWR, 1329 MW)
Neckarwestheim-2 (PWR, 1310 MW)

PreussenElektra
KKW Lippe-Emse
EnBW

1988
1988
1989

31 December 2022

Sources: German Atomic Energy Act/Atomgesetz, 31 July 2011, Atomforum Kernenergie May 2011; WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 20211478

Notes:
Krümmel and Brunsbüttel were officially closed in 2011 but had not been providing electricity to the grid since 2009 and 2007 respectively
PWR=Pressurized Water Reactor; BWR=Boiling Water Reactor; KKW=Nuclear Power Plant (Kernkraftwerk); RWE=Rheinisch-Westfälisches
Elektrizitätswerk Power AG; EnBW=Energie Baden-Württemberg AG.
a - Vattenfall 66.67%, E.ON 33.33%
b - Vattenfall 50%, E.ON 50%.
c - RWE 75%, E.ON 25%.
d - E.ON 80%, Vattenfall 20%.
e - RWE 87.5%, E.ON 12.5%.

Netherlands
The Netherlands operates a single, 48-year-old 480 MW PWR at Borssele that provided
3.9 TWh (3.7 TWh in 2019) and a stable 3.2 percent of the country’s electricity in 2020, with ahistoric maximum of 6.2 percent back in 1986. In late 2006, the operator and the Government
reached an agreement to allow operation of the reactor to continue until 2033.1479
The conservative-liberal ruling governing party VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and
Democracy) announced in January 2019 that it was developing new ideas for nuclear power in
Netherlands. The options under consideration were further extension of operations at Borssele,
construction of a new plant, or realizing new nuclear power plants in a European context. At
the time the energy industry in the Netherlands dismissed the government initiative to develop
a new nuclear plant as wholly unrealistic. The operator of Borssele in May 2019 stated that any
new nuclear plant would “never happen” without government financing. Developments during
1478 - German Bundestag, “Dreizehntes Gesetz zur änderung des Atomgesetzes”, Signed into Law on 31 July 2011, Bundesgesetzblatt,Nr. 43, 5 August 2011; and “Atomforum Kernenergie”, May 2011,1479 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in the Netherlands”, Updated February 2017, see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf107.html,
accessed 14 July 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

the last year show that Elektriciteits Produktiemaatschappij Zuid-Nederland (EPZ) have madeconsiderable progress towards that state financing.1480
EPZ explained in a parliamentary hearing in November 2020 its thinking both in terms of
the future of the 48-year-old Borssele reactor and any new nuclear plant. In terms of lifetime
extension, EPZ proposed that together with government it explore the technical-economic
preconditions for operating Borssele for 10–20 years beyond its current license which expiresin 2033.
As for new reactors, EPZ stated that it supported the construction of two 1500 MW reactors, with
European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) and Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APR),
which they described as “already licensed and in operation elsewhere. EPR and APR units
are also under construction. They are proven safe and reliable means of production.”1481 The
site under consideration would be the existing Borssele site with the preferred option being
construction of both reactors simultaneously with phased delivery, with anticipated costs ofa new Generation-III reactor “between 8 and 10 billion euros [US$20209.3–11.6 billion] and theconstruction time is approximately 8 years.”1482
In language reflecting the significant costs and risks of new nuclear and in mirroring that usedby EDF in the U.K. over the financing of the Hinkley Point C EPRs, EPZ indicated that any newreactors (and Borssele life extension decisions) would require active support from the Dutch
government, including financial mechanisms. EPZ said that the government’s role would beindispensable because “if the design is changed during construction (which takes 8 to 10 years)
due to changing requirements, the costs and construction time increase disproportionately.”1483
EPZ de facto admitted that nuclear power cannot compete with renewables in the current
electricity market, stating that renewable “incentives” disrupt the functioning of the market,“as a result of which sustainable energy is marketed far below system costs… Government
control and/or guarantees are indispensable to be able to operate a nuclear power plant inthis capricious market. Certainties are needed with regard to the payback of the (commercial)investment in a new nuclear power plant.”1484
In what appears to be a direct response to the calls from EPZ for government support for
nuclear power, on 7 July 2021, KPMG released a report on nuclear energy market consultation,
which discusses the conditions under which market parties would be prepared to invest in new
nuclear plant in the Netherlands.1485 The report was authorized following a resolution by the
Dutch House of Representatives. In confirming that the cost of nuclear power was not possible
to finance without direct government intervention, the KPMG report concluded that, “thatprivate financing is impossible or difficult to achieve without far-reaching guarantees from the1480 - Ibidem.
1481 - EPZ, “Vision EPZ on nuclear energy in the Netherlands after 2033”, November 2020 (in Dutch),see https://www.epz.nl/app/uploads/2021/04/Visie-EPZ-op-kernenergie-in-Nederland-na-2033.pdf, accessed 30 June 2021.
1482 - Ibidem.
1483 - Ibidem.
1484 - Ibidem.
1485 - Government of the Netherlands, “KPMG marktconsultatie kernenergie” [“KPMG nuclear energy market consultation”],
7 July 2021 (in Dutch), see https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2021/07/07/kpmg-marktconsultatie-kernenergie,
accessed 14 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 government… a large NPP is too big for many private investors and has too long a horizon.”1486
As cited in Nuclear Engineering International (NEI), the various financing structures assessed
by KPMG include price guarantees (Contract for Difference, ‘CfD’, or Power Purchase
Agreement, ‘PPA’) or certainty of power purchase (Mankala model). Market parties indicatethat they prefer the Regulated Asset Based (RAB) model although it is untested in nuclear
energy. Looking at the Mankala model (for example Hanhikivi in Finland) a substantial part of
the financing is provided by the supplier during construction of nuclear technology (throughequity or subordinated loans), possibly in combination with export financing but “this model
appears to be less applicable in the Netherlands, partly due to the lack of sufficient participants(i.e. large consumers)”.1487 With respect to a PPA or CfD model, KPMG says that, in addition
to security of turnover, it is expected that financiers will request various guarantees from thegovernment.
KPMG reported market parties indicating that the Netherlands should opt for a Generation
III+ reactor and in due course a Generation IV reactor after the technology has been proven.
The preferred technology providers cited were EDF (Olkiluoto, Flamanville, Hinkley Point C),
Westinghouse (Vogtle), KEPCO (Barakah), and Rosatom (Ostrovets, Akkuyu, Hahnikivi,
Paks II).
The option to develop new reactors with Rosatom, as well as Chinese technology, has been
excluded on request from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. A final choice is expected
to be made between 2021 and 2023. KPMG believes that the designs of these Generation III+
reactors are “mature” and knowledge and expertise are being built up in Europe, “costs will
be expected to be lower.” Due to the lack of current commercial SMRs, KPMG projects thatpossible construction would “be possible only after 2027–2033.”1488
In response to the KPMG report, the Dutch government announced to study the use of
nuclear power to at least 2050.1489 The government reported that the province of Zeeland,
which hosts the Borssele reactor, is positive about the construction of a new nuclear power
plant. State Secretary Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius stated that, “We do not have the luxury of
excluding a sustainable energy source. The Netherlands wants to emit less CO2 and generate
more sustainable energy. To achieve our climate goals, we will have to pull out all the stops,
including nuclear energy if it is profitable and safe. That is why I also want to look at how we
can maintain and strengthen the nuclear knowledge we have in the Netherlands. We must keep
all options open.”1490
The government also cited the KPMG report that the existing nuclear power plant in Borssele
should remain open longer, according to the companies involved, “because the power plant is1486 - As cited in NEI, “KPMG looks at feasibility of new build in Netherlands”, 12 July 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newskpmg-looks-at-feasibility-of-newbuild-in-netherlands-8893831, accessed 13 July 2021.
1487 - Ibidem.
1488 - Government of the Netherlands, 7 July 2021, op. cit.
1489 - Ibidem.
1490 - Government of the Netherlands, “Staatssecretaris Yeşilgöz-Zegerius gaat toekomstige rol kernenergie onderzoeken”[“Secretary of State Yeşilgöz-Zegerius will investigate the future role of nuclear energy”], 7 July 2021, see https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/
actueel/nieuws/2021/07/07/staatssecretaris-yesilgoz-zegerius-gaat-toekomstige-rol-kernenergie-onderzoeken, accessed 14 July 2021;
and Netherland News Live, “Secretary of State Yeşilgöz-Zegerius investigates future role of nuclear energy”, 8 July 2021,
see https://netherlandsnewslive.com/secretary-of-state-yesilgoz-zegerius-investigates-future-role-of-nuclear-energy/194098/,
accessed 30 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 economically profitable and nuclear knowledge is thus preserved.” The current Dutch Nuclear
Energy Act does not permit lifetime extension; however, Yeşilgöz-Zegerius reported that they
are currently exploring how the Nuclear Energy Act can be amended to extend the license of
Borssele which is scheduled to close in 2033.1491

Spain
Spain operates seven reactors that provided a stable 55.8 TWh in 2020, compared to 55.9 TWh
in 2019, representing 22.2 percent of the country’s electricity, compared to 21.4 percent in2019 and a maximum of 38.4 percent in 1989. Spain’s reactors have a mean operating age of
36.4 years as of 1 July 2021. License extensions have been approved for three reactors during
the past year, still in line with the government’s nuclear phase-out plans.
In late January 2019, Spain’s coalition government agreed a nuclear phase-out plan withutilities Endesa, Iberdrola and Naturgy. The agreement was part of the overall Integrated
National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP) which was approved by the Cabinet meeting on
22 February 2019.1492 The details of the reactor closure-dates were published in February 2019by newspaper Cinco Días.1493 All of Spain’s reactors would be closed by 2035; however, thepolicy also secured lifetime extension for all reactors beyond 40 years, in contrast to previous
governing Socialist Party (PSOE) policy. On 3 March 2019, Teresa Ribera, Minister for the
Ecological Transition, confirmed that an agreement had been reached with Iberdrola, Endesa
and Naturgy that in effect extends operation of their reactors.1494
In March 2020, the government updated the INECP 2021–2030.1495 The 2030 target of 161 GW
of total installed power generating capacity is to include 50 GW of wind, 39 GW of solar PV,
27 GW of CCGTs (Combined Cycle Gas Turbines), 16 GW hydro, 9.5 GW pumped hydro, 7 GW
thermo- solar, and 3 GW nuclear (1.9 percent).1496
A major point of tension between the utilities was over the amortization time of their reactors.
Iberdrola had accounted for the nuclear plants’ operating until 40 years, whereas Endesa
had planned for 50-year operation in its accounts. Iberdrola said that it also has no financial
incentive to continue nuclear operations if the business continues to lose money.1497 Iberdrola
and Naturgy had put forward plans for extension of the Almaraz reactors to 2027, of which
they jointly share ownership together with Endesa, on the condition that they would be able to1491 - Ibidem.
1492 - Carmen Monforte, “El Gobierno cierra el calendario con las fechas de clausura de cada central nuclear”, CincoDías, El País
Economía, 11 February 2019 (in Spanish), see https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2019/02/08/companias/1549647160_807281.html,
accessed 8 July 2021.
1493 - Ibidem.
1494 - Público, “La ministra Ribera afirma que es necesario prolongar la vida de las centrales nucleares”, 3 March 2019 (in Spanish),see https://www.publico.es/politica/energia-nuclear-prolonga-vida-centrales-nucleares.html, accessed 8 July 2021.
1495 - Renewables Now, “Spain raises ambitions in new 2030 NECP - more emission cuts, wind, solar”, 13 April 2020, see https://
renewablesnow.com/news/spain-raises-ambitions-in-new-2030-necp-more-emission-cuts-wind-solar-694786/, accessed 8 July 2021.
1496 - Massimo Schiavo, Pierre Georges et al., “The Energy Transition And What It Means For European Power Prices And Producers:
Midyear 2020 Update”, S&P Global, 8 June 2020, see https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200608-the-energytransition-and-what-it-means-for-european-power-prices-and-producers-midyear-2020-update-11509932, accessed 8 July 2021.
1497 - NW, “Spain’s Endesa to apply to renew all reactor licenses in 2019, 2020”, Platts, 7 March 2019.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 withdraw if there was a requirement to make further investments. Endesa, which was not infavor of reactor closure before 50 years, set no conditions.
On 22 March 2019, Iberdrola confirmed that it had reached agreement for the extension of theAlmaraz-1 and -2 reactors to operate until 1 November 2027 and 31 October 2028 respectively,
and that it had applied for license extension.1498 The agreement is based on the condition
that Iberdrola will spend no more than €600 million (US$677 million) during the remaining
operational life of the reactors.1499
On 7 May 2020, the Plenary of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) announced that it had
decided to approve a technical assessment on the request for license renewal for the two
Almaraz reactors.1500 As a result, CSN recommended to the Government to authorize the39-year-old Almaraz-1 to operate until 1 November 2027 and Almaraz-2, connected to thegrid in October 1983, to operate until 31 October 2028. The approval by CSN set safety andcompliance conditions, including the requirement, as noted above, to invest up to €600 million(US$677 million).1501 The Ministry for the Ecological Transition granted the license extensions
for the Almaraz plant in July 2020.1502
The Almaraz plant is located adjacent to the Tagus River in an area of significant seismic riskand 110 kilometers from the Portuguese border.1503 For this reason the continued operationof the plant has been opposed by Portuguese environmental groups, political parties, andgovernments. The decision of the CSN prompted the Portuguese government to demand that
Almaraz be subject to an environmental impact assessment.1504 In July 2020, a complaint was
filed by a Portuguese parliamentary member of the Pessoas-Animais-Natureza (PAN) party
against the Almaraz decision.1505 The filing was to the United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe, citing contravention of the Espoo Convention, which requires an environmental
impacts assessment and the Arhus Convention, which obliges Madrid to “inform and consult”
neighboring Portugal before making any decision on license renewal.
1498 - Iberdrola, “Iberdrola finalises the Almaraz renewal agreement, which guarantees economic activity and employment at theplant for the next 25 years”, 22 March 2019, see https://www.iberdrola.com/press-room/news/detail/iberdrola-finalises-almarazrenewal-agreement-which-guarantees-economic-activity-employment-plant-next-years, accessed 8 July 2021.
1499 - Isla Binnie, “Power firms agree on route to close Spain’s oldest nuclear plant”, Reuters, 22 March 2019, see https://www.reuters.
com/article/us-spain-energy-nuclearpower/power-firms-agree-on-route-to-close-spains-oldest-nuclear-plant-idUSKCN1R325G,
accessed 8 July 2021.
1500 - CSN, “El CSN informa favorablemente la renovación de la autorización de explotación de la central nuclear Almaraz (Cáceres)”,
7 May 2020 (in Spanish), see https://www.csn.es/-/el-csn-informa-favorablemente-la-renovacion-de-la-autorizacion-de-explotacion-dela-central-nuclear-almaraz-caceres-, accessed 8 July 2021.
1501 - elEleconomista, “El CSN autoriza a la central nuclear de Almaraz a operar hasta octubre de 2028”, 7 May 2020 (in Spanish),see https://www.eleconomista.es/empresas-finanzas/noticias/10529185/05/20/El-CSN-autoriza-a-la-central-nuclear-de-Almaraz-aoperar-hasta-octubre-de-2028.html, accessed 8 July 2021.
1502 - Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico, “Orden TED-773-2020 , de 23 de julio, por la que concede
la renovación de la autorización de explotación de la Central Nuclear de Almaraz, Unidades I y II”, 2020, see https://www.csn.es/
documents/10182/27922/Orden%20TED-773-2020%20,%20de%2023%20de%20julio,%20por%20la%20que%20concede%20la%20
renovaci%C3%B3n%20de%20la%20autorizaci%C3%B3n%20de%20explotaci%C3%B3n%20de%20la%20Central%20Nuclear%20de%20
Almaraz,%20Unidades%20I%20y%20II, accessed 11 August 2020.
1503 - Jornal Económico, “Spanish nuclear power plant in Almaraz authorized to operate until 2028”, 8 May 2020,see https://jornaleconomico.sapo.pt/en/news/Spanish-nuclear-power-plant-in-Almaraz-authorized-to-operate-until-2028-586165,
accessed 8 July 2021.
1504 - Notícias ao Minuto, “Governo quer que extensão de funcionamento de Almaraz seja avaliada”, 5 May 2020 (in Portuguese),see https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/pais/1483078/governo-quer-que-extensao-de-funcionamento-de-almaraz-seja-avaliada,
accessed 8 July 2021.
1505 - Portugal Resident, “Almaraz nuclear risks: PAN lodges complaint against Spain to UN”, 30 July 2020,see https://www.portugalresident.com/almaraz-nuclear-risks-pan-lodges-complaint-against-spain-to-un/, accessed 7 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Asociación Nuclear Ascó-Vandellós II, known as ANAV, the operator of Vandellos-2, applied
for 10-year license renewal taking it to 2030.1506 Under the recently agreed Integrated Energy
and Climate Plan, Vandellos-2 is scheduled to operate until 2034, and therefore a further
license extension may be sought prior to 2030. On 24 June 2020, the CSN approved a ten-year
extension for Vandellos-2 until 2030.1507 The reactor is scheduled for closure in 2034.1508
On 18 March 2021 ministerial approval was granted for license extension for the Cofrentes
reactor until 30 November 2030,1509 at which time Spain’s only remaining commercial BWR is
expected to close.1510
The Plenary of CSN announced on 8 July 2021 that it had begun the analysis for license renewal
for the Ascó Unit 1 and Unit 2 PWRs for nine and ten years respectively.1511 Unit 1 was connectedto the grid on 13 August 1983 and Unit 2 was connected to the grid on 23 October 1985. Bothreactors have operational licenses until September 2021 and are scheduled for closure in 2029
and 2030 respectively.
The one reactor yet to apply for a license extension is Trillo Unit 1, which currently has a license
until November 2024, and is scheduled to close in 2035.
The Spanish government on 21 June 2021 approved new draft legislation to curb a recent
increase in energy prices for end-consumers while promoting clean energies, with a fresh cutof one billion euros in utilities’ remuneration.1512 The government is attempting to control
rising CO2 prices that increase energy prices for consumers and cap windfall profits of utilities
operating hydropower (above 10 MW) and nuclear plants. The new regulation will not be readyfor approval before year-end.
Utilities are already complaining that continued nuclear operation is unfavourable due to hightaxation on nuclear generation and low electricity market prices. Cited in the International
Energy Agency (IEA)’s “Spain 2021 Energy Policy Review”, Endesa told IEA that current
nuclear generation costs are well over €50/MWh, around 40 percent of which are taxes andfees for radioactive waste management.1513 Endesa told the IEA that it operates its reactors at
an economic loss under the prevailing MIBEL (Iberian power market or Mercado Ibérico deElectricidad) market price, “which has dropped due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
1506 - Platts Nuclear News Flashes, “Operator of Spain’s Vandellos-2 applies for 10-year license renewal”, 28 March 2019.
1507 - CSN, “El Pleno del CSN informa favorablemente la solicitud de renovación de autorización de explotación de la central nuclear
Vandellós II (Tarragona)”, 24 June 2020 (in Spanish), see https://www.csn.es/-/el-pleno-del-csn-informa-favorablemente-la-solicitudde-renovacion-de-autorizacion-de-explotacion-de-la-central-nuclear-vandellos-ii-tarragon-1, accessed 8 July 2021.
1508 - Platts Nuclear News Flashes, “Spain approves 10-year license extension for Vandellos-2 reactor”, 25 June 2020.
1509 - NEI, “Spanish government approves renewal of operating licence for Cofrentes NPP”, 23 March 2021,
see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsspanish-government-approves-renewal-of-operating-licence-for-cofrentes-npp-8618722,
accessed 8 July 2021.
1510 - Gianluca Baratti, “Spain’s nuclear regulator approves Cofrentes license renewal”, S&P Global, 18 February 2021,
see https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/021821-spains-nuclear-regulator-approvescofrentes-license-renewal, accessed 8 July 2021.
1511 - CSN, “The CSN begins the analysis of the application for renewal of the operating authorization of the Ascó nuclear power
plant”, 8 July 2021 (in Spanish), see https://www.csn.es/en/noticias-csn/2021/-/asset_publisher/jMixvJv7q15q/content/el-csn-inicia-elanalisis-de-la-solicitud-de-renovacion-de-autorizacion-de-explotacion-de-la-central-nuclear-asco, accessed 8 July 2021.
1512 - Jesús Aguado and Belén Carreño, “UPDATE 2-Spain approves energy legislation to promote clean energy, curb prices”, Reuters,
21 June 2021, see https://www.reuters.com/article/spain-power-regulation-idINL5N2NJ2UU, accessed 8 July 2021.
1513 - IEA, “Spain 2021 Energy Policy Review”, May 2021, see https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/bf2b75f3-224f-45bd-9dc283eb86388636/Spain2021.pdf, accessed 7 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Indeed, average MIBEL prices were around €40/MWh or less during the third quarter of 2020,
much lower than the nuclear generation cost.”1514

SwedenSweden’s nuclear fleet of seven reactors generated 47.4 TWh in 2020, a 26.5 percent drop
over the previous year, and 29.8 percent of the country’s electricity production, a decline of
4.2 percentage points over 2019. This is the first time since the early 1980s that the share of
nuclear power drops below the 30-percent mark. It had peaked in 1996 at 52.4 percent.
On 1 January 2021, it was announced that the Ringhals-1 had been shut down permanently
after 46 years of operation.1515 This followed the closure of Ringhals-2 on 30 December 2019.1516
The country has six remaining operating reactors. State-owned utility Vattenfall co-owns fiveunits,1517 while OKG (Oskarshamns Kraftgrupp AB)1518 owns the sixth, Oskarshamn-3.
The past year has seen a continuation of efforts by right-of-center opposition parties tooverturn the decision in 2016 on shutting down all nuclear reactors in Sweden by 2040.
On 10 December 2019, the Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats announced theirwithdrawal from the June 2016 energy policy agreement.1519 This was when the ruling RedGreen coalition and three opposition parties, including the Center Party, had reached a“traditional Swedish compromise” on future energy policy,1520 which fixed a 2040 target for a
100-percent renewable electricity mix.
Following the closure of Ringhals-2 in December 2019, attempts were made by politicians
to reverse the decision and scrap plans for closure of Ringhals-1. A parliamentary motion on
22 January 2020 attempted to reverse the closure of the Ringhals reactors but failed by one
vote. The motion was put forward by the far-right Sweden Democrats party, and backed by
the Moderates, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats, and was opposed by the Social
Democratic Party and Green Party coalition-government.
Despite these efforts, the closure of Ringhals is under Swedish law, final, with confirmation by
the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) on 20 January 2021, that as far as Ringhals-1

1514 - Ibidem.
1515 - Vattenfall, “The Ringhals 1 reactor has reached the finish line”, 1 January 2021, see https://group.vattenfall.com/se/nyheter-ochpress/pressmeddelanden/2021/reaktorn-ringhals-1-har-gatt-i-mal, accessed 18 July 2021.
1516 - Vattenfall, “Ringhals 2 nuclear plant shuts down”, Press Release, 19 December 2019, see https://group.vattenfall.com/press-andmedia/ news--press-releases/newsroom/2019/ringhals-2-nuclear-plant-shuts-down; and Svenska Dagbladet, “Ringhals 2 tystnade:‘Vemod’”, 30 December 2019 (in Swedish), see https://www.svd.se/medelalders-elforsorjare-tystnar, both accessed 18 July 2021.
1517 - Ringhals-1–4 (Vattenfall 70.4%, E.ON 29.6%), Forsmark-1–3 (Forsmarks Kraftgrupp FKG, Vattenfall 66%, Mellansvensk
Kraftgrupp 25.5%, E.ON 8.5%)
1518 - OKG is owned by Uniper Sverige (formerly Sydkraft), an E.ON spinoff, for 54.5% and Fortum for 45.5%.
1519 - Svenska Dagbladet, “M och KD lämnar – vill ha svar om kärnkraften”, 10 December 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.svd.se/m-och-kd-ratar-energioverenskommelsen, accessed 16 June 2020.
1520 - Government Offices of Sweden, “Agreement on Swedish energy policy—Framework agreement between the Swedish Social
Democratic Party, the Moderate Party, the Swedish Green Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats”, 16 June 2016,see https://www.government.se/articles/2016/06/agreement-on-swedish-energy-policy/, accessed 1 August 2020.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 is concerned, “under the regulations of the Act on Nuclear Activity means that electrical
production may not be resumed”.1521
As reported in WNISR2019, the efforts to stop the closure of Ringhals conflicts with the positionof the reactor owners. Vattenfall’s decision to close the reactors was due to the reactors being
uneconomic, safety concerns over containment aging, the requirement for major investment inmany upgrades, as well as the need for new licensing.1522 On 28 November 2019, the head of thecompany’s generation department, Torbjörn Wahlborg, said that Vattenfall never intended tooperate Ringhals-1 and -2 longer than into the mid-2020s. He added that although electricity
prices are higher now (at the end of 2019) than they were in 2015 when the company took thedecision to close the reactors, “there is so much renewable energy in the [electricity] systemthat there is no place in the market for these reactors.”1523
For more than four decades phasing out nuclear power has been on the agenda in Sweden. A
1980 public referendum decided to end nuclear power by 2010. Sweden retained the 2010 phaseout date until the middle of the 1990s, but an active debate on the country’s nuclear futurecontinued and led to a new inter-party deal to start the phase-out earlier but abandon the 2010
deadline. The first reactor (Barsebäck-1) was closed in 1999 and the second one (Barsebäck-2)
in 2005. In June 2010, the parliament voted by a tight margin (174–172) to abandon the phaseout legislation. As a result, theoretically, a new plant could again be built— but only if anexisting plant is closed.
On 22 December 2016, the 40-year-old Oskarshamn-2 was officially closed, followed on
17 June 2017 with the closure of the 46-year-old Oskarshamn-1.1524
To operate reactors into the 2040s, owners need to win approval following ten-year periodic
safety reviews. The first to do so under the new 2016 policy were the 39-year-old Forsmark-1
and 38-year-old Forsmark-2, which secured approval on 18 June 2019 from SSM to operate for
10 more years until 2028.1525 The SSM approved continued operation for the reactors, while alsofinding “deficiencies regarding the containment and aging of concrete structures deemed as
small in the current situation, but it may increase in the long term if the deficiencies are notremedied since serious degradations... may occur in the reactor containment and other building
structures of importance for radiation safety.”1526 This could mean significant refurbishment
work may be indispensable in the coming years.

1521 - SSM, “Notification regarding the permanent closure of Ringhals 1”, 20 January 2021, see https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.
se/en/press/news/2021/notification-regarding-the-permanent-closure-of-ringhals-1, accessed 15 July 2021.
1522 - Birgitta Forsberg, “Vattenfalls vd: Mer kärnkraft inte lösningen”, Svenska Dagbladet, 20 May 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.svd.se/vattenfalls-vd-mer-karnkraft-inte-losningen; and Lars Larsson, “Kärnkraftsförespråkare förloradeom Ringhals”, Svenska Dagbladet, 22 January 2020 (in Swedish), see https://www.svd.se/riksdagen-rostar-om-ringhals,
accessed 15 July 2021.
1523 - Ariane Sains, “Swedish parliament to debate continued operation of Ringhals reactors”, NW, 2 January 2020.
1524 - Ibidem.
1525 - SSM, “Forsmark har förutsättningar att fortsätta driva F1 och F2 strålsäkert till 2028s”, 24 June 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/press/nyheter/2019/forsmark-har-forutsattningar-att-fortsatta-driva-f1-och-f2stralsakert-till-2028/, accessed 25 June 2019.
1526 - SSM, “Återkommande helhetsbedömning / Forsmarks Kraftgrupp AB / Forsmark 1 och 2”, 18 June 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/6b998f90ef4c4dda8a5914ce3c3ca982/granskning-av-aterkommandehelhetsbedomning-av-forsmark-1-och-2.pdf, accessed 24 June 2019.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Major construction work at all of Sweden’s reactors—with significant impact on production—
was completed during 2020. This relates to the requirement that all reactors operating
beyond 2020 have in place Independent Core Cooling Systems (ICCS).1527 The new system is aconsequence of the stress tests following the Fukushima accident and the SSM requirements
for an independent core cooling system designed to withstand extreme external hazards. On
18 December 2020, SSM confirmed that the reactors at Forsmark, Ringhals and Oskarshamn
predominantly meet the set conditions and requirements.1528
The 2016 policy agreement also allowed for the building of new reactors, but, as in the previous
agreement, only for replacement and not in addition to existing units. The agreement also
stipulates: “Central Government support for nuclear energy, in the form of direct or indirect
subsidies, cannot be assumed”.1529 While Vattenfall CEO Hall stated in May 2019 that “thedisadvantage of nuclear power is that it has become so expensive to build that it is difficult tomotivate to build new nuclear power,”1530 the company has indicated during the past year that it
is open to operating reactors beyond the 2040 deadline.1531 “We will consider the possibility ofdriving them longer,” said Torbjörn Wahlborg, production manager at Vattenfall.1532
Currently, all six remaining Swedish reactors are scheduled for 60-year operation into the2040s, with closure of the last reactor in 2045,1533 when Sweden plans to have 100 percent of its
electricity generated by renewable energy.
In May 2021, the operators of Sweden’s reactors posted an urgent message via power exchange
Nord Pool that the Clab temporary spent fuel waste storage site is reaching full capacity and thegovernment has still yet to give its approval to a final repository. Consequently, the operators
warned, Forsmark-4 faces potential closure in 2024, followed by Forsmark-3 and Ringhals-3
and -4 the next year, with Forsmark-1 in 2028.1534 The companies called on the government
to make a decision on where to store spent fuel by the end of August 2021 to avoid exceeding
the storage allowance at the temporary site in Oskarshamn. “We have ongoing contact withgovernment representatives, but a decision before the end of August this year is necessary in

1527 - Ministry of the Environment, “Sweden’s Eighth National Report under the Convention on Nuclear Safety—Sweden’s
Implementation of the Obligations of the Convention”, Swedish Government, Ds 2019:16, August 2019, see https://www.regeringen.
se/4adae6/contentassets/c8c431c94efb4c4abefb38ca36272b5a/swedens-eighth-national-report-under-the-convention-on-nuclearsafety-ds-201916.pdf, accessed 16 June 2020.
1528 - SSM, “Forsmark, Ringhals and OKG meet the requirements for independent core cooling”, 18 December 2020 (in Swedish),see https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/press/nyheter/2020/forsmark-ringhals-och-okg-uppfyller-kraven-pa-oberoendehardkylning/, accessed 15 July 2021.
1529 - Government Offices of Sweden, “Framework agreement between the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Moderate Party, theSwedish Green Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats”, 16 June 2016.
1530 - Op. cit. Birgitta Forsberg, 20 May 2019.
1531 - Lovisa Åkesson, “Vattenfall öppnar för kärnkraft efter 2040”, Expressen, 24 November 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/klimat/vattenfall-oppnar-for-karnkraft-efter-2040-/, accessed 15 July 2021.
1532 - svt Nyheter, “Ringhals ägare öppnar för ny kärnkraft”, 23 November 2019 (in Swedish),see https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/ringhals-agare-oppnar-for-nya-karnkraftverk, accessed 15 July 2021.
1533 - Vattenfall, “Asset Management At Nuclear Power Plants—With International Standards And Principles”, IAEACN-246-14,
Presented at the 4th International Conference on NPP Life Management, IAEA, 23–27 October 2017, see https://www.iaea.org/
NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2017/2017-10-23-10-27-NPTDS/054_Frojd_Presentation.pdf, accessed 15 July 2021.
1534 - Industry Europe, “Swedish Nuclear Reactors Risk Closure Due To Waste Storage Issues”, 6 May 2021,
see https://industryeurope.com/sectors/energy-utilities/swedish-nuclear-reactors-risk-closure-due-to-waste-storage-issues/,
accessed 15 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 order not to endanger electricity production at our nuclear production units,” Vattenfall said ina statement to Reuters.1535
The decision on the repository was described by Environment Minister Per Bolund as “one of
the biggest environmental questions ever in Sweden”.1536 The government stated that while theissue was a high priority there was a chance the process would not be completed before Clabreaches full capacity, and therefore there was the possibility of deciding on the Clab interim
facility separately from the repository in order to avoid a situation where there is no storage
capacity in Sweden.1537 Barring intervention to prevent the extension of the capacity of Clab,
early closure of Sweden’s reactors due to this issue is unlikely.
New emergency planning zones and emergency planning distances were announced in June
2020 for Swedish nuclear power plants.1538 The sites will be surrounded by a Precautionary
Action Zone (PAZ) and an Urgent Protective action planning Zone (UPZ) as well as an
Extended Planning Distance (EPD), extending approximately 5, 25 and 100 kilometersrespectively. SSM stated:
An inner and an outer emergency planning zone extending approximately 5 and 25 kilometersrespectively will be introduced around each of Sweden’s nuclear power plants. Within theseemergency planning zones, iodine tablets will be pre-distributed, warnings for the public in
the event of a nuclear accident will be pre-planned, and plans for evacuation and sheltering
will be put in place. (...) For the extended planning distance [out to 100 km], planning will
be put in place for relocation based on input from measurements of ground deposition,
sheltering, and limited distribution of iodine tablets. (...) The new emergency planningzones and distances are to be implemented in Swedish contingency planning no later than
1 July 2022.1539

The reorganization of emergency planning will likely have significant cost implications fornuclear operators.

Switzerland
Prior to the U.K. leaving the EU on 31 January 2020, Switzerland has been the only non-EU
Western European country generating nuclear power. Swiss nuclear output has declined by
9 percent from 25.3 TWh in 2019 to 23 TWh in 2020, mainly due to the closure of the Mühleberg
reactor in late 2019. As total national electricity generation dropped in the first COVID-19 yearby 3.4 percent, nuclear still generated 35.1 percent of the country’s electricity, 2.2 percentage

1535 - Nora Buli and Simon Johnson, “Five Swedish reactors risk closure by 2028 due to tardy nuclear waste decision”, Reuters,
5 May 2021, see https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/five-swedish-reactors-risk-closure-by-2028-due-tardy-nuclear-wastedecision-2021-05-05/, accessed 15 July 2021.
1536 - Ibidem.
1537 - Ibidem.
1538 - SSM, “New emergency and planning zones are introduced around Swedish nuclear power plants”, Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten,
see https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/en/press/news/2020/new-emergency-and-planning-zones-are-introduced-aroundswedish-nuclear-power-plants/, accessed 30 July 2021.
1539 - Ibidem.

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points down from the previous year.1540 With an average age of 45.3 years (see Figure 73),
Switzerland operates the second oldest nuclear fleet and—with Beznau-1, age 52 since gridconnection—the third oldest commercially operating reactor in the world.
In early July 2021, it was reported that the Federal Energy Office has engaged in talks with theoperators of the remaining four reactors about the potential lifetime extension to 60 years.1541
However, in Switzerland, there is no time limit on licenses. Nuclear reactors can operate aslong as they are deemed safe by the safety authorities. The Swiss Energy Foundation has called
the lifetime extensions “an unnecessary and dangerous game to gain time”.1542
In October 2013, operator BKW announced that it would close its Mühleberg reactor in 2019,
due to “indefinable and unquantifiable… technical, economic and political uncertainties[that] could increase the economic risks of long-term operation.”1543 In March 2016, BKW
communicated that Mühleberg would be disconnected from the grid as of 20 December 2019.1544
The closure date of the Mühleberg nuclear unit was respected with Swiss precision and thereactor was disconnected from the grid on the target date.
Figure 73 · Age Distribution of the Swiss Nuclear Fleet

Age of Swiss Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

2
Reactor Age
31–40 Years
1

4 Reactors
Mean Age45.3 Years1

41–50 Years
51 Years and Over
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

On 21 May 2017, 58 percent of Swiss voters agreed to the Energy Strategy 2050 that provides
a long-term policy framework based on the dynamic development of energy efficiency andrenewable energies. The strategy does not fix any closure dates for nuclear power plants andaims to keep the existing reactors operating “as long as they are safe”. However, it prohibits

1540 - SFOE/BFE, “Schweizerische Elektrizitätsstatistik 2020/Statistique Suisse de l’Électricité 2020”, Swiss Federal Office ofEnergy, June 2021 (in German and French), see https://www.bfe.admin.ch/bfe/de/home/versorgung/statistik-und-geodaten/
energiestatistiken/elektrizitaetsstatistik.exturl.html/aHR0cHM6Ly9wdWJkYi5iZmUuYWRtaW4uY2gvZGUvcHVibGljYX/
Rpb24vZG93bmxvYWQvMTAwODY=.html, accessed 3 August 2021. The official national figures vary slightly from the IAEA-PRIS
statistics.
1541 - Michel Sutter, “Laufzeitverlängerung der Kernkraftwerke sorgt für Diskussionen”, Energate Messenger, 5 July 2021.
1542 - Ibidem.
1543 - NIW, “Switzerland—Briefs”, 1 November 2013.
1544 - BKW, “Kernkraftwerk Mühleberg geht am 20. Dezember 2019 definitiv vom Netz—Endgültige Einstellung desLeistungsbetriebs”, Press Release, 2 March 2016.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

the construction of new nuclear power plants and the reprocessing of spent fuel. The “totallyrevised energy legislation” entered into force on 1 January 2018.1545
The legislation is comprehensive, providing a framework for grid development regulation,
renewable energy incentives, auto-consumption, energy efficiency and the “organic phase‑out”
of nuclear power. The efficiency targets are ambitious, with reduction of per-capita energy
consumption levels—compared to the 2000 baseline—by 16 percent by 2020 and 43 percent by
2035, while per-capita electricity consumption was to decrease by 3 percent by the end of 2020
and 13 percent by 2035.
According to the “Energy Strategy 2050 Monitoring Report 2020”, final energy consumption
per capita (weather-adjusted) had decreased by 18.1 percent as of the end of 2019, whileper‑capita power consumption had decreased by 8 percent (weather-adjusted)—both
indicators exceeding the 2020 targets.1546 In addition, per-capita power consumption decreasedby another 0.8 percent in 2019, so Switzerland has again demonstrated that significantly more
ambitious targets would be achievable.
Domestic production of non-hydro renewable-energy based electricity was to reach a modest
target of 4.4 TWh by 2020, which, after an increase of 17.2 percent over the previous year, wasachieved in 2020 with 4.7 TWh, but still represents only 5 percent of the net power generated
in the country.1547
The request to significantly increase the targets for renewables is therefore a logical point ofpublic demand in the ongoing debate around a new energy bill. The government has decided
to liberalize the electricity market and adapt the energy legislation accordingly. It has statedthat a key goal of the reform would be to stimulate distributed renewable energies, includingcollective auto-consumer and energy-coop schemes.1548
In particular the safety of Beznau-1, the eldest of the Swiss reactors, continues to raise
concerns.1549
Meanwhile, Switzerland struggled with the implementation of a credible independent national
nuclear regulator. On 24 June 2020, Martin Zimmermann resigned from his position as
Chairman of the Board of the national safety authority ENSI as of the end of the month. His
decision was “triggered by accusations of a lack of independence that have been expressed in

1545 - SFOE, “Wichtigste Neuerungen im Energierecht ab 2018”, Swiss Federal Office of Energy, 2 November 2017 (in German),see https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/50166.pdf, accessed 12 July 2018.
1546 - SFOE, “Energy Strategy 2050—Monitoring Report 2019”, Abridged Version, Swiss Federal Office of Energy, November 2019,see https://www.bfe.admin.ch/bfe/en/home/supply/statistics-and-geodata/monitoring-energy-strategy-2050.html; and SFOE,“Stratégie Énergétique 2050—Rapport de Monitoring 2019/Energiestrategie 2050—Monitoring-Bericht 2019”, November 2019
(in French and German).
1547 - SFOE, “Schweizerische Elektrizitätsstatistik 2020/Statistique Suisse de l’Électricité 2020”, op. cit.
1548 - UVEK, “Bundesrat will einheimische erneuerbare Energien stärken und Strommarkt öffnen”, 3 April 2020,see https://www.uvek.admin.ch/uvek/de/home/uvek/medien/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-78665.html, accessed 3 August 2020.
1549 - Simone Mohr and Christian Küppers, “Materialfehler im hochversprödeten Reaktordruckbehälter des Kernkraftwerks Beznau
Block 1— Stellungnahme zum Sicherheitsbericht der Axpo, zum Review des ENSI und zum Assessment des IRP bezüglich desSicherheitsnachweises des Reaktordruckbehälters von Beznau 1”, commissioned by Greenpeace Switzerland and SES, 28 June 2019; also
Simon Banholzer, “Öko-Institut zweifelt am Sicherheitsnachweis von Beznau I”, SES, 6 November 2019 (in German), see https://www.
energiestiftung.ch/medienmitteilung/oeko-institut-zweifelt-am-sicherheitsnachweis-von-beznau-i.html, accessed 10 August 2020.

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the media as well as in procedural requests”, according to a statement by the ENSI Board1550 (seeWNISR2020 for details). On 1 November 2020, Marc Kenzelmann took over the ENSI Board
Chair position. Kenzelmann, a professor for public economic law, has been a board member
since September 2019. On the day of the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushimadisaster, ENSI Board President Andreas Abegg stated that “the ENSI Board will continue tocarry out its duties both vigilantly and independently, while ensuring the clear separation of
ENSI’s regulatory safety function on the one hand from economic and political interests on theother”.1551

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, nuclear power provided 16 TWh or 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2020,
down from a maximum of 47.3 percent in 2002, which is produced by two VVER-1000 reactors
at Kozloduy.
Originally, there were six reactors on site, but the oldest four (VVER-440 v230) were closed aspart of an agreement by the G7 in Munich in 1992, implemented in the agreement to join theEuropean Union in 2007. The two VVER-1000 (V-320) reactors (Units 5 and 6), that started up
in 1987 and 1991 respectively, are undergoing a relicensing program intending to try and extend
their operating lifetimes for up to 60 years, compared to their initial 30-year license. In 2017,
Unit 5 was awarded an additional 10-year operating lifetime, to enable it to continue operating
until 2027, and in October 2019, Unit 6, was granted a license to operate until 2029. Reportedly,
the total cost of the two-unit extension program was BGN292 million (US$163 million).1552 In
December 2019, the Russian fuel company TVEL announced that it had signed a five-year fuelsupply contract until 2025. This is despite previous requests from the EU for diversification of
nuclear fuel supply in Bulgaria.1553
There have been ongoing attempts to build another nuclear power plant at Belene in Northern
Bulgaria. Construction started in 1987 but was halted in 1990 and suspended indefinitely in
1991. Work officially resumed in 2008 but was abandoned again in 2012. In March 2019, theGovernment announced that it was preparing to select a single strategic investor for the projectand started a tender procedure, which officially started after publication in the EU Official
Journal. Initial interest has been expressed by China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)
and Rosatom.
1550 - ENSI, “Martin Zimmermann to stand down as Chairman of the ENSI Board at the end of June 2020”, 25 June 2020,see https://www.ensi.ch/en/2020/06/25/martin-zimmermann-to-stand-down-as-chairman-of-the-ensi-board-at-the-end-of-june-2020/,
accessed 6 August 2020.
1551 - Andreas Abegg, “Ten years on from Fukushima, the ENSI Board still holds that safety has priority over political or economic
interests”, ENSI, 11 March 2021, see https://www.ensi.ch/en/2021/03/11/ten-years-on-from-fukushima-the-ensi-board-still-holds-thatsafety-has-priority-over-political-or-economic-interests/, accessed 10 August 2021.
1552 - WNN, “Kozloduy unit 6 clear to operate for another 10 years”, 2 October 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Kozloduy-unit-6-clear-to-operate-for-another-10-ye, accessed 4 April 2021.
1553 - NEI, “Russia to supply fuel to Kozloduy NPP until 2025”, 5 December 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussiato-supply-fuel-to-kozloduy-npp-until-2025-7541032/, accessed 4 April 2021.

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In December 2019, during a visit from Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to the U.S., conversations
were held with President Trump about the construction of Belene, including the supply of
turbines by American firms. The same month, the Bulgarian Government announced thatfive companies had been shortlisted for negotiations, namely CNNC, Korea Hydro & Nuclear
Power (KHNP) and Rosatom’s subsidiary Atomenergoprom, although Russia very much sees
the project as its own. Two companies, Framatome and General Electric (GE), were shortlisted
to supply either the project turbine island (GE) or I&C—Instrumentation and Control
systems—(Framatome) rather than the whole reactor. The finalists were expected to submit
binding bids by the end of January 2020. The Government announced that investors would be
able to negotiate electricity purchases with companies seeking to acquire minority stakes inBeleneHowever, in January 2021, the Government appeared to abandon the plans for constructionof a reactor at Belene and this was reported in the English language press as “this third
suspension is likely to end the Belene nuclear project forever”.1554 Nevertheless this was notofficially the end of nuclear new-build, with suggestions that attention should once again be
focused on building a 7th reactor at Kozloduy, which would include the movement of equipmentfrom Belene.1555

Czech Republic
The Czech Republic has six Russian-designed reactors in operation at two sites, Dukovany andTemelín. The former houses four VVER-440 v213 reactors, the latter two VVER-1000 v320
units. In 2020, nuclear plants generated 28.4 TWh, similar to previous years, representing arecord 37.3 percent share in electricity production.
The Dukovany units were started up during 1985–87 and have already undergone a lifetimeextension upgrading-program under the expectation they would operate until 2025. In
March 2016, the state regulator extended the operating license of Dukovany-1 indefinitely 1556,
with an expectation from the operator that the plant will operate until 2037 with the possibilityof extension until 2047.1557
Over the past two decades the Government and industry have announced new initiatives tobuild additional reactors. In May 2018, it was reported that the government had postponed adecision saying it needed more time to evaluate the impact on its budget and find out EU views
on state aid for such a project.1558 On 13 November 2019, the Czech parliamentary committee
for the construction of new nuclear resources approved the construction of the Dukovany II
1554 - Krassen Nikolov, “Bulgaria puts end to Belene nuclear project”, Euractiv.bg, 21 January 2021, see https://www.euractiv.com/
section/politics/short_news/bulgaria-puts-end-to-belene-nuclear-project/, accessed 4 April 2021.
1555 - NEI, “Bulgaria considers using Belene reactors to expand Kozloduy plant”, 25 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newsbulgaria-considers-using-belene-reactors-to-expand-kozloduy-plant-8472288/, accessed 4 April 2021.
1556 - NucNet, “Dukovany-2 And -3 To Undergo Extended Checks On Pipe Welds”, 13 May 2016, see https://www.nucnet.org/all-thenews/2016/05/13/dukovany-2-and-3-to-undergo-extended-checks-on-pipe-welds, accessed 9 April 2021.
1557 - ČEZ, “NPP Dukovany”, CEZ GROUP, n.d., see http://www.cez.cz/en/energy-generation/nuclear-power-plants/dukovany,
accessed 10 May 2021.
1558 - Jan Lopatka, “Czechs put off decision on building new nuclear plants”, Reuters, 17 May 2018,see https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-czech-nuclearpower-idUKKCN1II2SD, accessed 9 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 nuclear plant.1559 Subsequently, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that they would start
construction in 2029 with first power in 2036. This would require holding a tender in 2021 andselect a vendor by the end of 2022, two years ahead of the previous tentative schedule.1560
Minister of Industry Karel Havlicek told reporters in February 2020 that by the end of 2022
the supplier should be selected.1561 In March 2020, ČEZ submitted an application to the State
Office for Nuclear Safety (SÚJB) for permission to construct two new 1200 MW units at the
Dukovany site. In June 2020, the government announced that it had agreed a financing model
whereby the government would provide a loan covering 70 percent of the project’s approximate
US$6 billion price tag, while ČEZ will have to front the remaining 30 percent. The government
said then it was their intention to launch a tender later in 2020.1562
The government is expected to prepare draft contracts with ČEZ and its project company
subsidiary that would establish a long-term (30-40 years) offtake agreement from theprospective newbuild, in order to give the project greater financial security. It is also suggested
that the Government is prepared to guarantee the project’s legislative and regulatory risks,
so that if a subsequent government were to phase out nuclear power, it would be committed
to buy the project and reimburse the investor’s expenses.1563 It is not clear how the contracts
between the state and ČEZ will be drawn up to provide such guarantees to ČEZ and minority
shareholders.
The choice of vendor for the project is controversial and could even threaten the wholeproject. Initially five designs were said to be in the running, including Korea Electric Power
Co’s (KEPCO’s) “APR1000+”, a revised EPR from EDF (“EPR1200”), both of which are yet to
be built anywhere, an AP1000 from Westinghouse, and reactors from China General Nuclear
Power Corporation (CGN) and Rosatom of Russia. However, in early 2021, CGN was ejectedfrom the process—due to security concerns—and the Czech Parliament delayed a final
decision as the opposition demanded the Rosatom design also be removed.1564 Subsequently, thegovernment unanimously approved the resolution and Deputy Prime Minister Karel Havlícek
said that security assessment will only be given to suppliers from France, South Korea and the
U.S.1565
The Government remains determined to proceed with the project and to keep the powerpurchase agreement (PPA) competitive with €50-€60 (US$61–73/kWh). However, this canonly be achieved by significantly increasing the state liabilities through providing 100-percent
state-lending, a 60-year rather than 30-year PPA and keeping construction costs to €4,500–
5,000 (US$5300–6100/kW). Initially, the Government had hoped to launch the tender1559 - NEI, “Czech Republic approves new unit for Dukovany”, 18 November 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsczechrepublic-approves-new-unit-for-dukovany-7513325/, accessed 9 April 2021.
1560 - NIW, “Briefs – Czech Republic”, 15 November 2019.
1561 - NEI, “ČEZ applies to build new nuclear units at Dukovany”, 30 March 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newscezapplies-to-build-new-nuclear-units-at-dukovany-7844971/, accessed 9 April 2021.
1562 - Gary Peach, “Prague Announces 70% Financing for Dukovany”, NIW, 5 June 2020.
1563 - Phil Chaffee, “Newbuild: Prague AdvancesDukovany Plans”, NIW, 1 May 2020.
1564 - NIW, “Czech Parliament Delays Dukovany”, 12 February 2021.
1565 - NIW, “Prague Excludes Rosatom From Dukovany II”, 23 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 before the Autumn 2021 elections, but later said that the decision would be taken by the next
government.1566

Hungary
Hungary has one operating nuclear power plant, at Paks, where four VVER-440 v213 reactors
provided a stable 15 TWh or 48 percent of the country’s electricity in 2020. The nuclear sharein the national power mix is down from 53.6 percent in 2014. The reactors started operation
1982–7 and have been the subject of engineering works to enable their operation for up
to 50 years (compared to their initial 30-year license). The first unit received permission tooperate for another 20 years in 2012, the second unit in 2014, the third in 2016 and the fourthin December 2017, enabling operation until the mid-2030s.
For over a decade plans have been discussed and developed to build a new nuclear power
plant. In March 2009, the Parliament approved a government decision-in-principle to build
additional reactors and a tender was prepared according to European rules. In 2014, the Paks II
project was suddenly awarded to Rosatom without reference to the public tender, with Russia
financing 80 percent of the project in loans. In February 2017, during a visit to Hungary,
Russia’s President Putin confirmed that it was even willing to fund 100 percent of the estimated€12 billion (US$12.9 billion) investment.1567 The original Russian-Hungarian bilateral financing
agreement consisted of a €10 billion (US$11.3 billion) loan to the Hungarian state, to be repaid
starting in 2026, irrespective whether the project would be online at that time. Hungary itself
will have to invest 20 percent or €2 billion (US$2.3 billion) into the project. Then in April 2021,
the loan terms were revised so that Hungary would start repaying the loan in 2031, five years
later than originally agreed.1568
In November 2016, the European Commission cleared the award of the contract to Rosatom of
any infringement on its procurement rules, and in March 2017, it also approved the financial
package for Paks II.1569 However, in February 2018 the Austrian Government challenged
the validity of the decision, which, as of mid-2021, was still under review by the European
Court of Justice.1570 The legal challenge has subsequently been supported by the Luxembourg
Government.
The plant was granted an environmental license in September 2016, and in March 2017
the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority (HAEA) approved the site license for the new

1566 - BNE Intellinews, “Tender for Czech nuclear power plant Dukovany to be left to new government”, 29 March 2021, see https://www.intellinews.com/tender-for-czech-nuclear-power-plant-dukovany-to-be-left-to-new-government-206633/, accessed 10 May 2021.
1567 - NIW, “Briefs – Hungary”, 3 February 2017.
1568 - WNN, “Hungary gets agreement to delay Paks II loan repayment”, 30 April 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Hungary-gets-agreement-to-delay-Paks-II-loan-repay, accessed 1 May 2021.
1569 - European Commission, “State Aid—Hungary—SA.38454 (2015/C) (ex 2015/N)— Possible aid to the Paks nuclear
power station”, Official Journal of the European Union, 12 January 2016, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/
TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32017D2112, accessed 10 April 2021.
1570 - WNN, “Austria takes EC to court over Paks decision”, 23 February 2018, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Austriatakes-EC-to-court-over-Paks-decision-2302184.html#:~:text=Austria%20has%20launched%20a%20lawsuit,the%20Paks%20
nuclear%20power%20plant., accessed 10 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 construction.1571 However, since then, there have been increasing concerns over the impact ofhotter summers on the cooling water availability due to higher water temperatures from the
Danube River, especially if both Paks I and II are in operation. Within the EIA process thesolution to this problem was to reduce output from the plants when cooling water availability
was limited, which would affect the economics of the project and the demand-supply gridbalance.1572
In June 2019, a ceremony was held with representatives of Rosatom to mark the start of theerection of buildings at the site and in October 2019, Rosatom handed in the project technicaldocuments. On 30 June 2020, Paks II Ltd. submitted the construction license application
to the HAEA. The regulatory procedure started its assessment the next day and HAEA has
12 months to make known its views.1573 That period could be—and has been—extended byan additional three months.1574 If all did go according to plan, site preparation would take an
additional 18 months, therefore formal construction is to start in mid-2022, some six years
after the Hungarian and Russian Government signed the corresponding intergovernmental
agreements.
Power production is therefore likely to be in 2030, rather than the 2025 originally envisaged.
It has been noted that the government has ceased pressing for the project to proceed. Russia,
where the economy is suffering, awarded the project a fixed price contract that “might nolonger be favorable”, while in Hungary cheaper solar deployment is rapidly highlighting thehigh costs of Paks II, which would be borne by the taxpayers.1575
In May 2021, the Austrian Federal Environmental Agency published a report which foundthat the Dunaszentgyörgy-Harta seismic fault passes through the Paks II site and is both anactive and a capable fault. The assessment concludes that “The Paks II site should therefore bedeemed unsuitable”. The Hungarian authorities, responding to the publication of the Austrian
report, stated that the licensing process had not found any issues that indicated that the site
was unsuitable.1576

Romania
Romania has one nuclear power plant at Cernavoda, where two Canadian-designed CANDU
reactors are in operation. In 2020, they provided a stable 10.6 TWh or 20 percent of thecountry’s electricity, compared to 18.5 percent in 2019.

1571 - NIW, “Briefs – Hungary”, 31 March 2017.
1572 - Gary Peach, “Five Years on, Hungary’s Paks Expansion Stumbles Along”, NIW, 8 February 2019.
1573 - HAEA, “Paks II. Ltd. submitted the construction license application to the HAEA”,
Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority, 30 June 2020, see http://www.oah.hu/web/v3/HAEAportal.nsf/
web?OpenAgent&article=news&uid=5B9108F378B8DFBCC1258597003BF3DE, accessed 10 April 2021.
1574 - Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority, “Hirdetmény közzététele az ügyintézési határidő meghosszabbításáról a paksi telephelyen
létesítendő 5. és 6. atomerőművi blokkok létesítési engedélyezési eljárásában”, 19 May 2021 (in Hungarian), see https://www.haea.gov.
hu/web/v3/oahportal.nsf/web?OpenAgent&article=news&uid=4346A8D52E23910EC12586DA0023F45A, accessed 24 May 2021.
1575 - Gary Peach, “Hungary: Exorbitant Costs, Solar Energy Remove Luster From Paks II”, NIW, 22 May 2020.
1576 - Eszter Zalan, “Hungary’s nuclear power plant expansion unnerves Austria”, EUobserver, 7 June 2021,
see https://euobserver.com/climate/152035, accessed 19 June 2021.

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The reactors are the only CANDU reactors operating in Europe. Construction started between
1982 and 1987, initially on five reactors. Unit 1 was completed in 1996, and Unit 2 started up
in 2007, 14 and 24 years after construction started. The two units were partly funded by the
Canadian Export Development Corporation, the second also partly by the Euratom Loan
Facility. As with other CANDU reactors, major refurbishment will be needed after longer
operation, and in January 2020 a US$10.8 million contract was signed with Candu Energy,
part of the Canadian SNC-Lavalin Group, to undertake engineering analysis and assessmentson the fuel channels to enable Unit 1 to operate until a large-scale refurbishment expected in
2026.1577
Various foreign companies have been involved in the attempts to revive the construction ofUnits 3, 4 and 5. In November 2013 the Cernavoda operator, state-owned electricity producer
Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN) and China General Nuclear (CGN) signed aletter of intent. This was followed in November 2015 with the signing of a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) between Nuclearelectrica and CGN for the construction, operation anddecommissioning of Units 3 and 4. The MoU also included agreements on investments, andremarkably, CGN was to be the majority share owner of the project with at least 51 percentof the shares.1578 In January 2016, the Romania Government formally expressed support forthe project. The cost of the completion of two reactors with 720 MW each was expected to be
US$7.8 billion.1579 However, in January 2020 the Government announced that it would cancel
the deal and Prime Minister Ludovic Orban stated that “the partnership with the Chinesecompany is not going to work”.1580
The Government claims it has not abandoned the project but rather would be looking foradditional partners. It is suggested that one of the reasons why the partnership with China
has been abandoned is the signing of a nuclear co-operation agreement with the U.S. signedin August 2019. In October 2020, Adrian Zuckerman, the U.S. ambassador to Romania,
said in a speech at the initialing of an intergovernmental agreement. “Now we have a greatclean American company, Aecom, leading this $8 billion project, with assistance from clean
Romanian, Canadian and French companies.”1581 Shortly following this, Romania and France
signed a declaration of intent for a partnership on the construction of Units 3 and 4 and theupgrade of reactor 1.1582

1577 - NEI, “Romania cancels China deal on Cernavoda but proceeds with life extension”, 24 January 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsromania-cancels-china-deal-on-cernavoda-but-proceeds-with-life-extension-7653710,
accessed 10 April 2021.
1578 - Romania Insider, “Romania and China seal deal for Cernavoda nuclear plant expansion”, 9 May 2019,see https://www.romania-insider.com/index.php/romania-china-seal-deal-nuclear-plant, accessed 10 April 2021.
1579 - WNN, “Romania expresses support for China’s role at Cernavoda”, 25 January 2016, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
NN-Romania-expresses-support-for-China-role-at-Cernavoda-25011601.html, accessed 10 April 2021.
1580 - NEI, “Romania Cancels China Deal on Cernavoda but Proceeds with Life Extension”, 24 January 2020,see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsromania-cancels-china-deal-on-cernavoda-but-proceeds-with-life-extension-7653710,
accessed 29 July 2021.
1581 - NIW, “Aecom to Lead $8 Billion Completion of Romania’s Cernavoda-3 and -4”, 9 October 2020, see https://www.energyintel.
com/pages/articlesummary/1086555/aecom-to-lead--8-billion-completion-of-romania-s-cernavoda-3-and--4.
1582 - NEI, “Romania and France to partner on Cernavoda expansion”, 29 October 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsromania-and-france-to-partner-on-cernavoda-expansion-8206702/, accessed 10 April 2021.

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Slovakia
In Slovakia, the state utility Slovenské Elektrárne (SE) operates two nuclear sites,
Jaslovské Bohunice, which houses two operating VVER-440 v213 units, and Mochovce, which
has two similar reactors. In 2020, their production was a stable 14.4 TWh or 53 percent of thecountry’s electricity.
The country has three permanently closed reactors at the Bohunice site. The A-1, a small
92 MW unit which started operation in 1972, was closed in 1977 following several accidents.
The other two VVER-440 v230 reactors were closed in 2006 and 2008, as part of the agreement
to join the European Union in 2004.
Units 1 and 2 at the Mochovce plant were started up in 1998 and 1999 respectively.
Modernization and upgrading of the units began in August 2020, increasing their output from471 MWe to 500 MWe. In October 2004, the Italian national utility ENEL (Ente Nazionale perl’Energia Elettrica) acquired a 66 percent stake in SE and, as part of its bid, proposed to invest
nearly €2 billion (US$2.7 billion) in new nuclear generating capacity, including completion of
the third and fourth blocks of Mochovce, whose construction originally began in January 1985.
In February 2007, SE announced that it was proceeding with the completion of Mochovce-3
and -4 and that ENEL had agreed to invest €1.8 billion (US$20072.6 billion). According to the
IAEA’s PRIS, construction restarted in June 2009, and, at the time, the units were expected togenerate power in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
Towards the end of 2014, ENEL announced it was seeking to sell its share in SE and hadreceived several non-binding bids. In December 2015, Czech holding EPH (Energeticky a
Prumyslovy Holding) was revealed as the bid winner, with a preliminary price of €750 million(US$812 million). Under the deal, ENEL got €150 million (US$171 million) in the first stage, inwhich EPH received a share of 33 percent in the company, the remaining share and final priceto be agreed one year after Mochovce is completed.
The construction project continues to be plagued by problems, and by May 2016, the estimate
for the total costs of completion of Units 3 and 4 had risen to €5.1 billion (US$5.72016 billion),with startup at the end of 2016/early 2017.1583 In March 2017, SE announced a considerable
further delay in the project, with operation expected only at the end of 2018 and 2019. This isan additional two years of construction, while the officially expected cost increase was only
€300 million (US$333 million).1584 As of early 2018, completion of the projects was still expected
at the end of 2018 and 2019.1585
In April 2019, Mochovce-3 completed “hot testing” in preparation for fuel loading in thesummer, although the regulatory process could at that time still take eight months. A new
delay was reported to add an estimated €270 million (US$305 million) to the cost, representing

1583 - Spravy Pravda, “Ďalšie peniaze na Mochovce? Žiga nemá oficiálnu informáciu” [“Additional money for Mochovce ?”], 5 May 2016
(in Slovak), see http://spravy.pravda.sk/ekonomika/clanok/392783-dalsie-peniaze-na-mochovce-ziga-nema-oficialnu-informaciu/,
accessed 10 April 2021.
1584 - WNN, “Slovak utility increases Mochovce expansion budget”, 31 March 2017, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NNSlovak-utility-increases-Mochovce-expansion-budget-31031701.html, accessed 10 April 2021.
1585 - NIW, “Briefs—Slovakia”, 31 January 2020.

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a 5 percent increase and bringing the total to €5.4 billion (US$6.1 billion).1586 However, in
September 2019, it was announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ÚJD) would require
further modifications prior to fuel loading.1587 In January 2020, the nuclear regulator reported
two deficiencies in Unit 3 following a second round of hot testing. SE had to submit a plan forcorrective action.1588
Fuel loading has been further delayed, and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was expected
at the beginning of the summer of 2020. “In the worst case, it will be the end of 2020”
said Branislav Strýček, CEO of SE.1589 In June 2020, the regulator announced a six month“extension of the period for decision in the administrative proceeding for authorization forcommissioning of nuclear installation of the Unit 3”.1590 Furthermore, the regulator found“insufficient documentation of compliance with quality requirements, i.e. the permit holder
has yet to complete, supplement or specify documentation proving the quality of certain
equipment and work performed”.1591
In December 2020, an additional loan agreement was made between ENEL and SE for a
maximum of US$570 million, to enable the completion of both units. This brings the expected
construction cost to US$6.2 billion (US$7,000/kWe), with fuel loading at Unit 3 then expectedby April 2021—it did not happen—and at Unit 4 in 2023.1592
In May 2021, ÚJD finally issued permits allowing operation as well as related permits forradioactive waste and used fuel management.1593 The permits are subject to a public comment
period, which started on 4 June 2021, with a 15-day window for appeals. The Austrian
Government has objected to the licensing and asked for an independent assessment.1594 The
startup of Unit 3 is expected later in 2021.
On 15 April 2019, the Slovak anti-corruption police raided several SE offices, including thoseat Mochovce, and arrested the former CEO of SE, Paolo Ruzzini, and Nicola Cotugno, former
Mochovce director and Ruzzini’s successor at SE on corruption charges. Both were involved in
the privatization of SE to ENEL in 2004 and responsible for the restart of the Mochovce-3 and -4
1586 - WNN, “Mochovce 3 completes commissioning test”, 16 April 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Mochovce3-completes-commissioning-test, accessed 10 April 2021.
1587 - NEI, “Hot testing of Mohovce 3 revealed the need for further modifications”, 18 September 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newshot-testing-of-mohovce-3-revealed-the-need-for-further-modifications-7413902/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1588 - NIW, “Briefs—Slovakia”.
1589 - SE, “Mochovce 3: Nuclear authority issued a draft decision on fuel loading”, Slovenské Elektrárne, Press Release,
18 February 2020, see https://www.seas.sk/article/mochovce-3-nuclear-authority-issued-a-draft-decision-on-fuel-loading/409,
accessed 10 April 2021.
1590 - ÚJD SR, “Announcement of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic on the extension of the period
for decision in the administrative proceeding for authorization for commissioning of nuclear installation of the Unit 3 - NPP
Mochovce”, Press Release, 16 June 2020, see https://www.ujd.gov.sk/ujd/www1.nsf/$All/4188834860C1B178C125858B002981AB,
accessed 10 April 2021.
1591 - NEI, “Slovakia’s Mohovce 3 commissioning slowed by insufficient documentation”, 3 September 2020,see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsslovakias-mohovce-3-commissioning-slowed-by-insufficient-documentation-8116778,
accessed 7 January 2021.
1592 - WNN, “Mochovce new-build project receives loan boost”, 24 December 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Mochovce-new-build-project-receives-loan-boost, accessed 10 April 2021.
1593 - NEI, “Slovak regulator issues permit for commissioning of Mochovce 3”, 17 May 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsslovak-regulator-issues-permit-for-commissioning-of-mochovce-3-8749322, accessed 5 July 2021.
1594 - Christoph Matzl, “AKW-Löschsystem entspricht Standards nicht: “Feuer am Dach“ in der Atomruine Mochovce”, Kronen
Zeitung, 18 June 2021 (in German), see https://www.krone.at/2440644, accessed 5 July 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 construction.1595 Another raid was undertaken one year later, in March 2020, when thenational criminal agency entered the Mochovce site looking into a discrepancy between the“composition, manufacturing process or origin” of certain components at the reactors andtheir documentation, relating to one pipe subcontractor. However, the press reported concerns
the investigation could spread to other suppliers, further delaying startup.1596
In addition to the delays and cost overruns, concerns have been raised about the state of thepower market, with prices currently at very low levels with €20–25/MWh (US$21–27/MWh)and electricity demand following the sluggish economy and the short- and medium-term
impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Slovenia
Slovenia jointly owns the Krsko nuclear power plant with Croatia—a 696-MW Westinghouse
PWR. In 2020, it provided a stable 6 TWh or 38 percent of Slovenia’s electricity, a nuclear sharewell below the maximum of 42.4 percent in 2005. The reactor is built in an earthquake zone
and on 29 December 2020 it was shut down temporarily following a 6.3 magnitude event close
to the town of Petrinja in the Zagreb region, around 30 km from the plant.1597 In March 2021, theAustrian Environmental Group Global 2000 released a report which highlighted the seismic
vulnerability of the site and called for not only further technical review, but new geologicalinvestigations.1598
The reactor was started in 1981 with an initial operational life of 40 years. In July 2015, an InterState Commission agreed to extend the plant’s operational lifetime to 60 years, so that it would
continue until 2043, as well as to construct a dry storage facility for the spent fuel. In May 2016,a spokeswoman for the operator NEK (Nuklearna Elektrarna Krško) said: “The lifespan of
Krsko has been extended providing that the plant passes a security check every 10 years with
the next checks due in 2023 and 2033.”1599 In 2018, the operator announced around €50 million(US$57 million) worth of investment being planned for 2019, mostly for completing safety
upgrades (partially implementing findings of EU post-Fukushima stress tests) and replacing
obsolete equipment. The first outage for that was undertaken in October 2019, followed by asecond one in April 2021, which lasted one month. On 25 March 2021, the Austrian National
Council voted unanimously on a resolution instructing the country’s Environment Minister towork towards the avoidance of the lifetime extension of Krško.

1595 - TASR, “NAKA na letisku zadržala exšéfa Slovenských elektrární. Preverujú podozrenia týkajúce sa Mochoviec”, FinWeb,
15 April 2019 (in Slovak), see https://finweb.hnonline.sk/ekonomika/1924600-naka-na-letisku-zadrzala-exsefa-slovenskych-elektrarnipreveruju-podozrenia-tykajuce-sa-mochoviec, accessed 10 April 2021.
1596 - Phil Chaffee, “Slovakia: Police Raid Mochovce New Build”, NIW, 6 March 2020.
1597 - NEI, “Krsko nuclear plant restarts after earthquake triggers shutdown”, 4 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/
news/newskrsko-nuclear-plant-restarts-after-earthquake-triggers-shutdown-8435716/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1598 - Oda Becker and Patricia Lorenz, “Nothing learned from Fukushima: Atomic stress tests in the Slovenian Krško nuclear power
plant still not implemented”, Global 2000, March 2021, see https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/2021-AtomStresstest.pdf,
accessed 5 July 2021.
1599 - NEI, “Life extension for Slovenia’s Krslo NPP”, 6 May 2016, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newslife-extension-forslovenias-krslo-npp-4885976/, accessed 10 April 2021.

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As part of the co-ownership, Croatia is partly responsible for waste management and its preferred
location for storage of the material produced by the Krško plant is proving controversial with
its neighbors as it is only one km from its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina whose Foreign
Minister, in April 2020, characterized the proposal as unacceptable.1600
In January 2010, an application was made by the nuclear operator to the Ministry of Economy
to build an additional unit, but no advancement of the project has been reported ever since.

FORMER SOVIET UNION
Armenia
Armenia has one remaining reactor at the Metsamor nuclear power plant, situated within
30 kilometers of the capital Yerevan. The Armenian-2 called reactor provided 2.6 TWh or
34.5 percent of the country’s electricity in 2020, up from the previous year by 6.7 percentage
points but down from a maximum nuclear share of 45 percent in 2009.
The reactor started generating electricity in January 1980 and is a first-generation, Sovietdesigned reactor, a VVER-440 v270. In December 1988, Armenia suffered a major earthquakethat led to the rapid closure of its two reactors in March 1989. During the early 1990s andfollowing the collapse of the former Soviet Union, a territorial dispute between Armenia andAzerbaijan resulted in an energy blockade that led to significant power shortages which led to
the Government’s decision in 1993 to re-open Unit 2 at Metsamor. Since 2003, the Metsamor
plant is operated by InterRAO, a subsidiary of Russian Rosatom, as a part of an arrangement to
repay debts to Rosatom’s TVEL fuel supplier.
In October 2012, the Armenia Government announced that it planned to operate Metsamor
until 2026. The lifetime extension was made possible by a Russian loan of US$270 million anda US$30 million grant. In 2011, the Armenian Nuclear Regulatory Authority had granted thereactor an extension of its operating license until 2021, subject to annual safety demonstrations
starting 2016.1601
In June 2016, the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) issued the “EUPeer Review Report of the Armenian Stress Tests”1602 confirming numerous safety-related
problems. In September 2017, the European Commission published its proposed partnershipagreement with Armenia, which included recommendations for co-operation on “the closureand safe decommissioning of Metsamor nuclear power plant and the early adoption of a road

1600 - Igor Todorović, “BiH warns Croatia against storing nuclear waste from Krško at border”, Balkan Green Energy News,
3 April 2020, see https://balkangreenenergynews.com/bih-warns-croatia-against-storing-nuclear-waste-from-krsko-at-border/,accessed 10 April 2021.
1601 - NEI, “Armenian NPP to close for refurb”, 21 March 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsarmenian-npp-to-closefor-refurb-7054023/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1602 - ENSREG, “EU Peer Review Report of the Armenia Stress Tests”, June 2016, see http://www.ensreg.eu/document/armenia-stresstests-peer-review-20-24-june-2016, accessed 10 April 2021.

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map or action plan to that effect.”1603 Opposition parties in Turkey called on their Government
in December 2019 through a parliamentary resolution to take steps to resolve the risks posedby Metsamor. In March 2019, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that there wereno plans to close Metsamor and that “we will extend the lifecycle of the nuclear power station
as long as possible, although it is clear that it cannot work forever.”1604
In February 2020, Government officials said that they were considering, as part of the country’s
2040 energy strategy, further extending the life of the reactor along with measures to increase
its output by 12-15 percent.1605 This was confirmed in January 2021, when the cabinet approved
the 2040 energy strategy, which notes that the current US$330-million-investment program,designed to extend the operating life of Unit 2, will be completed by 2023. A consequence ofthe program is the closure of the unit for at least 140 days in 2021. The energy strategy alsosays that, if the safe operation is confirmed, the government will operate the facility at least
until 2036, which is expected to require additional investments of US$150 million.1606 The planalso includes proposals for the construction of an additional reactor.1607
For years, Armenia has been negotiating with Russia for the construction of a new 1000 MW
unit and signed an intergovernmental agreement to that effect in August 2010. Since then,little progress has been made, and there is no clear choice on future technologies, with some
proposing the development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).1608
In March 2020, the European Commission published a Communication proposing a new“Eastern Partnership Policy Beyond 2020”, which included recommendations on energy policy
and nuclear power. The proposal notes that diversification of fuel supply is necessary, notably
via renewable energy sources. Furthermore, it acknowledges that countries may choose nuclear
power but that “the EU’s forerunner role in binding nuclear legislation will be the basis offurther bilateral exchanges. We will continue to organize nuclear stress test peer reviews andfollow-up activities”.1609
The power plant remains a source of continual tension with neighboring Azerbaijan and in
July 2020 a senior Azerbaijani official threatened a missile strike against Metsamor during
renewed fighting on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Furthermore, Galib Israfilov, Azerbaijan
ambassador to the IAEA, sent a letter to the Director General in which he said the “continued

1603 - European Commission, “Annex to the Joint Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European
Union, of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy
Community and their Member States, of the one part and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part.”, 25 September 2017,see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52017JC0037, accessed 10 April 2021.
1604 - NEI, “Armenian NPP to close for refurb”, 21 March 2019, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsarmenian-npp-to-closefor-refurb-7054023/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1605 - NEI, “Armenia considers further life extension for Metsamor -”, 2 March 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsarmenia-considers-further-life-extension-for-metsamor-7802500, accessed 10 April 2021.
1606 - NEI, “Armenia to extend nuclear plant service beyond 2026”, 18 January 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsarmenia-to-extend-nuclear-plant-service-beyond-2026-8457690/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1607 - Phil Chaffee, “Interview: Azerbaijan Eager for Mechanism to Address Metsamor Concerns”, NIW, 7 August 2020.
1608 - Arka News Agency, “Minister: Armenia not to give up the idea of building new nuclear power plant”, 20 October 2017,see http://arka.am/en/news/technology/minister_armenia_not_to_give_up_the_idea_of_building_new_nuclear_power_plant/,
accessed 10 April 2021.
1609 - European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, “Eastern Partnershippolicy beyond 2020 — Reinforcing Resilience - an Eastern Partnership that delivers for all”, 18 March 2020, see https://eeas.europa.eu/
sites/eeas/files/1_en_act_part1_v6.pdf.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 operations of Metsamor NPP would be a high risk for the entire region due to potential
earthquakes in the immediate area.”1610

RussiaIn 2020, nuclear energy contributed 20.6 percent to the country’s electricity mix with anotherrecord production of 202 TWh of electricity as new reactors have come online in 2019–2020.
2020 saw one new reactor, Leningrad 2-2, connected to the grid in October with the startof commercial operation in March 2021, and the closure of Unit 2 at the original Leningrad
station, a 925 MW Chernobyl-type RBMK in November.1611 Consequently, as of mid-2021,
38 reactors are operating in the Russian Federation and nine are permanently closed.
Two large reactors remain under construction at Kursk II, which is a particularly important
project, as they would be the first of the latest Russian design, the VVER-TOI (VVER-V-510).
These are 1200 MW, Generation III+ design, and destined for export. At construction start ofUnit 1, completion was scheduled for late 2023, and in April 2020, the first deputy director forconstruction claimed that the project was on schedule.1612
In June 2020, Rosenergoatom announced that preparation work would begin for theconstruction of four new reactors, Units 3 and 4 at Leningrad II, as well as two reactors at
Smolensk.1613
In June 2021, Rosatom announced that it has started construction of an innovative fast reactor
that will use liquid lead as a coolant and uranium-plutonium nitride for fuel. The objective for
the BREST-OD-300 reactor is for it to operate by 2026 and it is said to cost 100 billion rubles(US$1.4 billion).1614
Construction started at Baltic-1, a 1109 MW VVER-491 reactor project, in February 2012.
However, construction was suspended in June 2013 for a variety of reasons, including
recognition of the limited market for electricity. Accordingly, WNISR has removed it from the
project construction listing. Despite no indication that construction has ever restarted, theproject remains “under construction” in IAEA-PRIS statistics.
In August 2016, a Government decree called for the construction of an additional 11 reactors
by 2030, including two new Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), a VVER-600 at Kola, and seven new
VVER–TOI units at Kola, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostrom and Tatar.1615
1610 - Phil Chaffee, “Interview: Azerbaijan Eager for Mechanism to Address Metsamor Concerns”, NIW, 2020, op. cit.
1611 - NEI, “Leningrad-II-2 begins commercial operation”, 23 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsleningrad-ii-2begins-commercial-operation-8618701/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1612 - NEI, “Russia’s Kursk II on schedule”, 14 April 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussias-kursk-ii-onschedule-7872033/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1613 - WNN, “Russia begins preparatory work for four new reactors”, 26 June 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Russia-begins-preparatory-work-for-four-new-reacto, accessed 10 April 2021.
1614 - NIW, “Construction Starts on Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor”, 11 June 2021.
1615 - WNN, “Russia to build 11 new nuclear reactors by 2030”, 10 August 2016, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
NP-Russia-to-build-11-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2030-10081602.html#:~:text=A%20Russian%20government%20decree%20
published,sodium%2Dcooled%20fast%20neutron%20reactors, accessed 10 April 2021.

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In early 2017, the CEO of Rosatom said that the Government would end state support forthe construction of new nuclear units in 2020, and therefore any new reactors would haveto be financed primarily via commercial nuclear energy projects on the international market.
Even before this date, the budget for construction of new reactors was expected to be amodest US$250–280 million in the period 2018–2020,1616 which may explain the lack of new
construction in Russia beyond Kursk II.
In March 2021, in its strategic review Rosatom said that by 2045 nuclear should provide
25 percent of the country’s electricity. This will, according to Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev,
require the commissioning of 24 blocks, including at new sites and in new regions.1617
According to the WNA’s nuclear profile for Russia, as of May 2021, the Government estimatedthat 15 units will be completed in or by 2030, including the two reactors under construction(Kursk 2-1 and 2-2).1618 Their list then includes two more reactors at Leningrad and two reactors
at Smolensk (2-1 and 2-2). However, it was reported that Rosatom received a budget of only
880 billion rubles (US$11 billion) and not the requested 1.16 trillion rubles (US$15.6 billion)
for construction through to 2035. In the summer of 2020, Rosatom announced that it would
build four new reactors (two VVER-1200 and two VVER-TOIs) to replace the aging RBMKs.1619
Commissioning of the fast reactor at Beloyarsk was delayed until 2036, from 2027. Therefore,
with actual construction ongoing on only two units, it is extremely unlikely that any of thesereactors will be operational by the start of the next decade. There are also plans to expand
the construction of floating nuclear plants and to increase their output, although no specifictimetables have been published.
Russia has closed nine power generating reactors: Obninsk-1, Beloyarsk-1 and -2, Bilibino-1,
Leningrad-1 and -2 and Novovoronezh 1–3. The average age of the Russian reactor fleet is now
28.3 years, with close to two thirds being 31 years or more, of which 11 operated for 41 years or
more. (see Figure 74). Therefore, a key issue for the industry is how to manage its aging units.
There are six classes of reactors in operation: the RBMK (a graphite-moderated reactor of
the Chernobyl type), the VVER-440, the VVER-1000, the VVER-1200, the KLT-40 and FBRs.
Designed for an operational lifetime of 30 years both the RBMKs and VVER-440 designs havebeen granted 15-year lifetime extensions to enable them to operate for 45 years. There are plans
to extend the operating life in some cases to 60 years1620, while the VVER-1000s are expected
to work for up to 50 years. Consequently, the closure of Leningrad-1 and -2 is potentially asignificant event, as, after 45 years of operation, it would indicate that 60-year operational
lifetime is beyond the RMBK potential.

1616 - NIW, “Briefs – Russia”, 22 September 2017.
1617 - NEI, “Rosatom’s development plans”, 11 March 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrosatoms-developmentplans-8592063/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1618 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Russia”, World Nuclear Association, July 2019, see https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/
country-profiles/countries-o-s/russia-nuclear-power.aspx, accessed 30 July 2019.
1619 - Gary Peach, “Rosatom Orders Four Reactors To Replace Aging RBMKs”, NIW, 17 July 2020.
1620 - NEI, “Russia permanently closes Novovoronezh 3”, 4 January 2017, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussiapermanently-closes-novovoronezh-3-5709099/, accessed 10 April 2021.

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Figure 74 · Age Distribution of the Russian Nuclear Fleet

Age of Russian Nuclear Fleet
as of 1 July 2021

Reactor Age

13

1
3

10

38 Reactors
Mean Age28.3 Years11

0–10 Years
11–20 Years
21–30 Years
31–40 Years
41–50 Years
50 Number of Reactors
by Age Class© WNISR - Mycle Schneider Consulting

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2021

The country also has two Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) in operation at Beloyarsk. The older
and smaller of the two reactors is a 600 MW unit, which started in 1980 with an expected
operational lifetime of 30 years. This was extended for the second time in April 2020 for afurther five years to enable the unit to operate until 2025,1621 but plans are being developed
to enable the unit to operate for 60 years. The BN-800 is in the course of converting fromhigh enriched uranium (HEU) to mixed oxide plutonium-uranium (MOX) fuel that should becompleted by 2022.1622 The new VVER-1200 reactors in Novovorenezh II and Leningrad II havea design lifetime of 60 years, with plans to extend this to 80. The floating KLT-40 reactors on
the Akademik Lomonosov are designed for three or four 12-year operational cycles.
Russia is an aggressive exporter of nuclear power, with, according to Rosatom, 35 separate
projects in various stages of advancement including: Bangladesh (two reactors at Rooppur);
Belarus (two at Ostrovets); China (two at Tianwan and two in the Liaoning province);
Egypt (four at El Dabaa); Finland (one at Hanhikivi); Hungary (two at Paks); India (four at
Kudankulam); and Turkey (four at Akkuyu).1623 Alexey Likhachev, head of Rosatom, expects
that by 2030 up to 70 percent of their revenue will come from outside the country. Likhachev
claims that the current order book is worth US$190 billion, of which US$133 billion for projects
this decade and US$90 billion on projects already underway.1624 However, WNISR considersof these only nine reactors as recently connected to the grid or under construction: two eachin Bangladesh, Belarus and India and three in Turkey, plus Bushehr-2 in Iran—this does notinclude previously exported reactors, such as those to China (Tianwan-1–4) of those in Central
and Eastern Europe.

1621 - NIW, “Briefs—Russia”, 3 April 2020.
1622 - IPFM, “BN-800 reactor to fully transition to MOX fuel in 2022”, 9 June 2020, see http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2020/06/bn800_reactor_to_fully_t.html, accessed 22 May 2021.
1623 - Rosatom, “Projects”, Undated, see https://rosatom.ru/en/investors/projects/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1624 - Reuters, “Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom on a drive to sell nuclear technology overseas”, as published in The Moscow Times,
24 May 2020, see https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/24/russias-rosatom-sees-foreign-revenues-new-products-fuelling-rapidgrowth-a66135, accessed 10 April 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

The relative success of Russia’s export drive in a niche market of state-funded projects is notprimarily the technology but the access to cheap financing that accompanies the deals.

UkraineUkraine has 15 operating reactors, two of the VVER-440 design and the rest VVER-1000s.
They provided 72 TWh or 51 percent of power generation in the country in 2020, a drop fromthe previous year with 78 TWh or 54 percent.
Twelve out of Ukraine’s 15 reactors were connected to the grid in the 1980s and had an original
design lifetime of 30 years. Ukraine has carried out a safety upgrade program for all of its
reactors at an estimated cost of €1.45 billion (US$1.62 billion) in total, of which the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and EURATOM contributed €600 million(US$670 million) between them. The disbursement of the loan has been gradual, and the third
tranche was only made available in 2020.
The nuclear operator has proposed to extend lifetimes of some of the reactors for another20 years. The proposal was accepted and now constitutes a core element of the nuclear strategy
approved by the Government. The country has four closed reactors, all at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant. Three nuclear reactors (two VVER-440s and one VVER-1000) at Rovno(also spelled Rivne) have been granted a lifetime extension of 20 years,1625 three units at South
Ukraine for ten years, and four units at Zaporozhye for ten years.1626, 1627
Two reactors, Khmelnitsky-3 and -4, are officially under construction, but WNISR removed
them from the construction list as no active work has been reported in many years. Building
work started in 1986 and 1987 but stopped in 1990. In September 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament
voted to cancel the project.1628 In January 2017, the Russian Government confirmed that the
2011-agreement on the completion of the units had been canceled.1629 However the Ukrainian
Government appears determined to finish them and in September 2020 a Presidential decree
instructed the Cabinet to submit a bill on the location, design and construction of the twounits, with some suggestions that the total cost of completing Khmelnitsky-3 and -4 in current
prices is estimated at UAH 76.8 billion (US$2.8 billion).1630 It was then reported in August 2020
that nuclear utility Energoatom resumed work on the construction of Khmelnitsky-3 and -4

1625 - NEI, “Life extension for Ukraine’s Rovno 3”, 23 July 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newslife-extension-forukraines-rovno-3-6258731/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1626 - NEI, “Life extension for Ukraine’s Zaporozhye 4”, 16 October 2018, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newslife-extensionfor-ukraines-zaporozhye-4-6803714/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1627 - NEI, “Energoatom marks life extension of Ukraine’s Zaporozhye 5 -”, 1 February 2021, see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsenergoatom-marks-life-extension-of-ukraines-zaporozhye-5-8484622/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1628 - Ed Adamczyk, “Ukraine scraps nuclear reactor deal with Russia”, UPI, 16 September 2015, see https://www.upi.com/Top_News/
World-News/2015/09/16/Ukraine-scraps-nuclear-reactor-deal-with-Russia/9811442413199/, accessed 10 April 2020.
1629 - NEI, “Russia ends Khmelnitsky construction agreement with Ukraine”, 13 January 2017, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/
newsrussia-ends-khmelnitsky-construction-agreement-with-ukraine-5718894/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1630 - NEI, “Working group reports on situation at Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky nuclear plant”, 6 October 2020,see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsworking-group-reports-on-situation-at-ukraines-khmelnitsky-nuclear-plant-8166180/,
accessed 10 April 2021.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 and promised to approve a plan for completing the units for operation in 2026.1631 In July 2021,
Energoatom’s acting President set a target of completing all pre-construction activities by
1 October 2021, adding that “Once the Law on KhNPP units 3 and 4 construction is adopted,
everything will move very quickly”.1632
In August 2017, the Government adopted an energy strategy which aims to maintain thecurrent level of nuclear in the power mix of about 50 percent up to 2035, while at the sametime to halve the level of energy intensity in the economy and increase the contribution ofrenewables to electricity to 25 percent (excluding hydro with 13 percent).1633 The Government isalso considering the future use of SMRs, with Holtec International, Ukraine’s Energoatom andthe country’s State Scientific and Technology Centre (SSTC) entering a formal partnershipto advance the U.S. company’s SMR-160 for deployment.1634 The SMR-160 remains underdevelopment and no country in the world has licensed the design yet. In March 2020, Energy
Minister Oleksiy Orzhel, who was formerly head of the Energy Sector Better Regulation Officeand head of the Ukrainian Association of Renewable Energy, was fired. It has been suggested
that the dismissal was due to the Minister’s apparent favor of renewable energy and his disdain
for coal and nuclear power.1635
Proposals are now being developed to introduce a direct power line from Khmelnitsky-2
to the European market. The Ukraine-EU Energy Bridge project, with an estimated cost of€243 million (US$290 million), is to be carried out in the form of a public-private partnership
between the Ukrainian state and an investor consortium consisting of Westinghouse Electric
Sweden, Luxembourg-based Polish Polenergia International, and UK-based EDF Trading.1636
Ukraine is already exporting electricity to Hungary, Romania and Slovakia through the
Burshtyn ‘energy island’ and to Poland and Moldova, while also importing electricity from
Russia and Belarus. The Khmelnitsky project foresees electricity export in two ways: via the
750 kV transmission line to Rzeszów in Poland and the line to the Albertirsa substation in
Hungary. Upgrading work on these lines would enable the addition of 1000 MWe of nuclear
power to the existing export potential of Burshtyn Energy Island.1637 It is now two years since
the appointment of the consortium to take forward the project, but little progress has been
made despite ongoing support from the Government.

1631 - NEI, “Ukraine’s president orders draft bill on development of nuclear energy”, 24 September 2020, see https://www.neimagazine.
com/news/newsukraines-president-orders-draft-bill-on-development-of-nuclear-energy-8148257/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1632 - Energoatom, “Energoatom intensifies works on Khmelnytskyi NPP unit 3 completion”, 23 July 2021, see http://www.energoatom.
com.ua/en/press_center-19/company-20/p/energoatom_intensifies_works_on_khmelnytskyi_npp_unit_3_completion-47716,
accessed 24 July 2021.
1633 - NEI, “Ukraine reveals new energy strategy”, 28 August 2017, see http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsukraine-reveals-newenergy-strategy-5910630/, accessed 10 April 2021.
1634 - WNN, “Consortium established for SMR-160 deployment in Ukraine”, 12 June 2019, see https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/
Consortium-established-for-SMR-160-deployment-in-U#:~:text=Holtec%20International%2C%20Ukraine’s%20Energoatom%20
and,reactor%20for%20deployment%20in%20Ukraine, accessed 10 April 2021.
1635 - Gary Peach, “Ukraine: Is Nuclear at a Crossroads?”, NIW, 27 March 2020.
1636 - Ukraine Energy, “Winner of ‘Ukraine-EU Energy Bridge’ project is determined”, 15 August 2019, see https://ua-energy.org/en/
posts/15-08-2019-2370f1a2-3ba4-439b-b2d0-b8b382d349ab, accessed 10 April 2021.
1637 - WNN, “Energoatom awaits approval for energy bridge tender”, 18 April 2018, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NPEnergoatom-awaits-approval-for-energy-bridge-tender-18041801.html, accessed 10 April 2021.

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The Ministry of Energy is also considering other means to consume the excess electricity inthe country including cryptocurrency mining and the creation of data centers near nuclear
power plants, with a pilot project connected to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.1638

1638 - Interfax Ukraine, “Cryptomining is modern tool to remove surplus of electricity – Energy ministry”, 7 May 2020,see https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/660620.html, accessed 10 April 2021.

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ANNEX 2 – STATUS OF
JAPANESE NUCLEAR FLEET
Table 22 – Status of Japanese Nuclear Reactor Fleet (as of 1 July 2021)
Operator

CHUBU
CHUGOKUHEPCO

HOKURIKU

JAPCO

KEPCO

ReactorMW

Startup
Year

Age
Years

NRA Compliance(b)Shutdown
Date(a)dd/mm/yy

Duration

Application
dd/mm/yyApproval
dd/mm/yy

Hamaoka-3 (BWR)

1 056

1987

34.4

29/11/10

10.6

16/06/15

LTO

Hamaoka-4 (BWR)

1 092

1993

28.4

13/05/11

10.1

14/02/14(c)LTO

Hamaoka-5 (BWR)

1 325

2004

17.2

14/05/11

10.1

Shimane-2 (BWR)

789

1988

33.0

27/01/12

9.4

25/12/13

LTO

Tomari-1 (PWR)

550

1988

32.6

22/04/11

10.2

08/07/13

LTO

Tomari-2 (PWR)

550

1990

30.8

26/08/11

9.8

08/07/13

LTO

Tomari-3 (PWR)

866

2009

11.6

05/05/12

9.2

08/07/13

LTO

Shika-1 (BWR)

505

1993

28.5

01/03/11

10.3

Shika-2 (BWR)

1 108

2005

16.0

11/03/11

10.3

LTO

LTO
12/08/14

Tokai-2 (BWR)

1 060

1978

43.3

11/03/11

10.3

20/05/14

Tsuruga-2 (PWR)

1 108

1986

34.0

07/05/11

10.2

05/11/15

LTO
Second Stage:
18/10/18(d)

TEPCO

LTO
LTO

(e)

Mihama-3 (PWR)

780

1976

45.4

14/05/11(10.1)

17/03/15

27/02/2020

Ohi-3 (PWR)

1 127

1991

30.1

02/09/13(4.5)

08/07/13

01/09/17

Ohi-4 (PWR)

1 127

1992

29.0

15/09/13(4.6)

08/07/13

01/09/17

Takahama-1 (PWR)

780

1974

47.3

10/01/11

10.5

17/03/15

Takahama-2 (PWR)

780

1975

46.4

25/11/11

9.6

17/03/15

Second Stage:
10/06/16(f)Second Stage:
10/06/16(f)Takahama-3 (PWR)

830

1984

37.1

20/02/12(3.9)

08/07/13

09/10/15

Takahama-4 (PWR)

830

1984

36.7

21/07/11(5.8)

08/07/13

09/10/15

Genkai-3 (PWR)

1 127

1993

28.0

11/12/10(7.3)

12/07/13

14/09/17

Genkai-4 (PWR)

1 127

1996

24.6

25/12/11(6.5)

12/07/13

14/09/17

Sendai-1 (PWR)

846

1983

37.8

10/05/11(4.3)

08/07/13

27/05/15

Sendai-2 (PWR)

846

1985

36.2

01/09/11(4.1)

08/07/13

27/05/15

KYUSHUSHIKOKU

StatusRestarted
29/06/2021
Restarted
16/03/18
Restarted
11/05/18
LTO
LTO
Restarted
9/06/17(g)Restarted
22/05/17
Restarted
23/03/18
Restarted
20/06/18
Restarted(h)14/08/15
Restarted(h)15/10/15
Restarted
15/08/16
LTO since
December2019(i)Ikaka-3 (PWR)

846

1994

27.3

29/04/11(5.3)

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-1 (BWR)

1 067

1985

36.4

06/08/11

9.9

LTO

08/07/13

19/04/16

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-2 (BWR)

1 067

1990

31.4

05/07/07

14

LTO

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-3 (BWR)

1 067

1992

28.6

16/07/07

14

LTO

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-4 (BWR)

1 067

1993

27.5

16/07/07

14

LTO

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-5 (BWR)

1 067

1989

31.8

25/01/12

9.4

LTO

Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 (BWR)

1 315

1996

25.4

26/03/12

9.3

27/09/13(j)Kashiwazaki Kariwa-7 (BWR)

1 315

1996

24.5

23/08/11

9.9

27/09/13

First Stage:
27/12/17
First Stage:
27/12/17

LTO
LTO

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Operator

ReactorHigashi Dori-1 (BWR)TOHOKU| 393

MWStartup
Year

Age
Years

1 067

2005

15.8

NRA Compliance(b)Shutdown
Date(a)dd/mm/yy

Duration

Application
dd/mm/yy

06/02/11

10.4

10/06/14

Onagawa-2 (BWR)

796

1994

26.5

06/11/10

10.7

Onagawa-3 (BWR)

796

2001

20.1

11/03/11

10.3

27/12/13

Approval
dd/mm/yy

StatusLTO

First Stage:
26/02/20(k)

LTO
LTO

Total: 33 Reactors / 31.7 GWe
Sources: JAIF, NRA, compiled by WNISR, 2021

Notes
BWR = Boiling Water Reactor; PWR = Pressurized Water Reactor; LTO = Long-Term Outage.
(a) – The shutdown dates are from JAIF, “Current Status of Nuclear Power Plants in Japan”, Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, as of 6 June 2019,see https://www.jaif.or.jp/cms_admin/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/jp-npps-operation190606_en.pdf, accessed 7 July 2019.
(b) – Unless otherwise indicated the application and approval dates are from NRA, “Current circumstances regarding examinations for NPP adherence to
new regulations”, Nuclear Regulatory Authority, 15 May 2019; and NRA, “原子力発電所の新規制基準適合性審査の状況” [“Regarding the progress statusof the new regulatory standard compliance examination, (Power reactor relation)”], 1 July 2020 (in Japanese), see https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000257174.pdf,
accessed 28 July 2020, and NRA, “Status of Application for Review of Commercial Power Reactor”, in “Annual Report FY 2019”, March 2021,
see https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000347153.pdf, accessed 11 June 2021.
(c) – Application withdrawn and resubmitted on 26 January 2015.
(d) – Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s (NRA) Approval for Basic Design (Step 2). In November 2018, NRA also approved lifetime extension to 60 years;
see JAIF, “NRA Allows Tokai-2 to Be Operated for Sixty Years, a First for a BWR”, 16 November 2018, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-allows-tokai-2-to-beoperated-for-sixty-years-a-first-for-a-bwr/, accessed 28 April 2019.
(e) – 2020 date from NRA, “Status of Application for Review of Commercial Power Reactor” in “Annual Report FY 2019”, March 2021, see https://www.nsr.
go.jp/data/000347153.pdf. Application for extension of operating period was approved by NRA on 16 November 2016. However, the Mihama-3 reactor will
be shut down on 23 October 2021, due to failing the deadline of installation of specialized safety facilities. JAIF, “Current Status of Nuclear Power Plants inJapan”, 10 August 2021, see https://www.jaif.or.jp/cms_admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/jp-npps-operation20210810_en.pdf, accessed 13 August 2021.
(f) – For both Takahama-1 and -2, the first two steps of the conformity review were achieved on 10 June 2016. The NRA also granted KEPCO approval ofextension of operation for 20 years on 20 June 2016. For details, see NRA, “The NRA approved the extension of operation period of Takahama Power Station
Units 1 and 2”, 21 June 2016, see http://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000154256.pdf, accessed 14 July 2017.
(g) – Takahama-3 had operated briefly between 29 January and 10 March 2016, before it was shut down by court order. The “Shutdown Duration” is calculated
until the first restart.
(h) – Kyushu Electric Power Company was required to finish installing counter-terrorism facilities at the Sendai-1 and -2 reactors by 17 March and
21 May 2020, respectively, but missed the deadline. As a result, Sendai-1 has been shut down since 16 March 2020 was restarted in November 2020. While
Sendai-2 was shut down on 20 May 2020 after only operating for four months following its maintenance and inspection outage completed in January. It was
restarted in December 2020. See Reuters, “TABLE-Japan nuclear reactor operations: Kyushu Electric restarts Sendai No. 2 reactor”, 13 January 2021.
(i) – In December 2019, Ikata-3 was shut down for maintenance and refueling (with restart of operation expected on 27 April 2020). On 17 January 2020, theHiroshima High Court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by local residents within a 50-kilometer radius of the Ikata plant, the effect of which was to extend
the outage of the Ikata-3 reactor, see Asahi Shimbun, “Residents win appeal to halt Ikata reactor over safety fears”, 17 January 2020, see http://www.asahi.
com/ajw/articles/AJ202001170057.html, accessed 15 May 2020. On 18 March 2021 the Hiroshima High Court overturned on appeal its earlier 2020 ruling,
opening the way for restart following completion of periodic inspections. As of 1 July 2021, it is expected to restart in October 2021, hence meeting the LTO
criteria.
(j) – On 16 June 2017, TEPCO re-filed its application with the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) to confirm compliance with safety requirements for
Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 and -7. The NRA had requested resubmission in February 2017.
(k) – JAIF, “NRA Approves Changes to Reactor Installation for Onagawa-2 under New Regulatory Standards”, 27 February 2020,see https://www.jaif.or.jp/en/nra-approves-changes-to-reactor-installation-for-onagawa-2-under-new-regulatory-standards/, accessed 20 May 2020.

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ANNEX 3 - STATUS OF NUCLEAR
POWER IN THE WORLD
Table 23 – Status of Nuclear Power in the World (as of 1 July 2021)
Nuclear Fleet
Operating

CountryLTO

MeanAge(a)

Under
Construction

Units

Years

Units
1

Units

Capacity(MW)

Argentina

3

1 641

30.8

Armenia

1

415

41.5

Bangladesh

-

-

-

2

Belarus

1

1 110

0.7

1

Power

EnergyShare ofElectricity(b)Share ofCommercial
Primary Energy(c)7.5% (+)

3% (=)

34.5% (+)
1%

Belgium

7

5 942

41.3

39.1% (–)

Brazil

2

1 884

30.1

2.1% (=)

1.1% (=)

Bulgaria

2

2 006

31.8

40.8% (+)

19.8% (2019)

Canada19

13 62438

14.6% (=)

6.4 (=)

China

52

49 5898.5

Czech Republic

6

3 934

30

Finland

4

2 794

42.3

France56

61 37036.1

Germany

6

8 113

34.5

11.3% (–)

4.7% (=)

Hungary

4

1 902

36.0

48% (–)

14.7% (=)

India

21

6 590

Iran

1

915

Japan

9

8 640

Mexico2

1 552

Netherlands

1

482

Pakistan

6

2 332

15

Romania

2

1 300

19.5

Russia38

28 59728.3

3

20.6% (=)

6.8% (=)

Slovakia

4

1 837

29.3

2

53.1% (=)

21% (2019)

1
24

18

13.9% (=)

4.9% (=)

2.2% (=)

37.3% (+)

17.4% (+)

1

33.9.% (=)

19.1% (=)

1

67.1% (–)

36.1% (=)

23.2/22.5

73.3% (=)

1.2% (=)

9.8

1

1.7% (=)

0.5% (=)

30.4/33.9

1

5.1% (–)

2.2% (=)

29.4

4.9% (=)

1.6% (=)

48,0

3.2% (=)

1.1% (=)

7.1% (=)

2.4% (=)

19.9% (+)

7.7% (=)

1

Slovenia

1

688

39.7

37.8% (=)

18.5% (2019)

South Africa

2

1 860

36.6

5.9% (=)

2.8% (=)

South Korea

23

22 199

29.6% (+)

12.1% (+)

Spain

7

7 121

36.4

22.2% (=)

10.4% (+)

Sweden

6

6 859

39

29.8% (–)

21.3% (–)

Switzerland

4

2 960

45.3

35.1% (–)

18.9% (=)

Taiwan

3

2 859

37.4

12.7% (=)

5.8% (=)

Turkey

-

-

-

3

UAE

1

1 345

0.9

3

1.1%

2

14.5% (–)

6.5% (=)

51.2% (–)

20.4% (–)

2

19.7% (=)

8.4% (=)

35.9

4

(c)

11% (=)

30.9

53

(c)

4.3% (=)

1

22/21.9

UK

13

7 883

37.4

Ukraine15

13 107

32.4

USA

93

95 523

40.6

EU27

106

104 348

World

415

368 92326

424.8% (–)

10.1% (=)

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, BP, 2021(a) – Including reactors in LTO/Excluding reactors in LTO (when different).
(b) – From IAEA-PRIS, “Nuclear Share of Electricity Generation in 2020”, as of 3 August 2021, except France and Switzerland (National sources).
(c) – From BP, “Statistical Review of World Energy”, 2021.

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 | 395

ANNEX 4 – NUCLEAR
REACTORS IN THE WORLD“UNDER CONSTRUCTION”
Table 24 – Nuclear Reactors in the World “Under Construction” (as of 1 July 2021)
Country
ARGENTINA

Units
1

Carem25
BANGLADESH

Capacity
MW netConstruction Start(dd/mm/yyyy)

Expected Grid
Connection

DelayedCAREM (PWR)

08/02/2014

20241

yes

25
25

2

Model

2 160

Rooppur-1

1 080

VVER-1200

30/11/2017

20232(commercial operation)

Rooppur-2

1 080

VVER-1200

14/07/2018

20243(commercial operation)

VVER V-491

03/06/2014

20224

BELARUS

1

Belarusian-2
CHINA

1 109
1 109

18

yes

17 062

Changjiang-3

1 000

HPR-10005

31/03/2021

20266

Fangchenggang-3

1 000

HPR-1000

24/12/2015

20217

Fangchenggang-4

1 000

HPR-1000

23/12/2016

20228

Fuqing-6

1 000

HPR-1000

22/12/2015

20219

yes

Hongyanhe-6

1 000

ACPR-1000+

24/07/2015

202210yes

11

Sanaocun-1

1 117

HPR-1000

31/12/2020

2026

Shidao Bay 1-112

100

HTR-PM

01/12/2012

202113yes

Shidao Bay 1-2

100

HTR-PM

01/12/2012

202114yes

Shidao-Bay 2-115

1 400

CAP1400

04/201916

202417

Shidao-Bay 2-2

1 400

CAP1400

11/201918

202419

Taipingling-1

1 116

HPR-1000

26/12/201920

202521(grid connection)

Taipingling-2

1 116

HPR-1000

15/10/2020

202622(grid connection)

Tianwan-7

1 100

VVER V-491

19/05/2021

202623

Xiapu-1

600

CFR-600

29/12/2017

202324

Xiapu-2

600

CFR-600

29/12/202025

202626

Xudabao-3

1 100

VVER V-491

19/05/2021

202727

Zhangzhou-1

1 000

HPR-1000

16/10/201928

202429(grid connection)

Zhangzhou-2

1 000

HPR-1000

04/09/202030

202531EPR

12/08/2005

2/202232

yes

EPR

03/12/2007

202333

yes

FINLAND

1

Olkiluoto-3
FRANCE
Flamanville-3

1 600
1 600

1

1 600
1 600

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Country
INDIA

Units

Capacity
MW net

7

5 194

| 396

Model

Construction Start(dd/mm/yyyy)

Expected Grid
Connection

DelayedKakrapar-4

630

PHWR-700

22/11/2010

February 202234(commissioning)

yes

Kudankulam-3

917

VVER V-412

29/06/2017

202435

yes

36

yes

Kudankulam-4

917

VVER V-412

23/10/2017

2025

Kudankulam-5

1 000

VVER V-412

29/06/202137

2026/202738

PFBR

470

FBR

23/10/2004

10/202239

yes

Rajasthan-7

630

PHWR

18/07/2011

02/202240(expected completion)yes

Rajasthan-8

630

PHWR

30/09/2011

03/202341(commercial operation)

yes

VVER V-446

02/197642

2024

yes

ABWR

12/10/2007

2025?43yes

HPR-1000

31/05/2016

202244(expected operation)

IRAN

1

Bushehr-2
JAPAN

1 196
1

Shimane-3
Pakistan

1 325
1 325

1

Kanupp-3
RUSSIA

1 196

1 014
1 014

3

2 650

BREST-OD-300

300

FBR

08/06/202145

2026

Kursk 2-1

1 115

VVER V-510

29/04/2018

04202246

Kursk 2-2

1 115

VVER V-510

15/04/2019

202347

VVER V-213

01/01/1985

202148

yes

VVER V-213

01/01/1985

49

2023

yes

SLOVAKIA

2

Mochovce-3

440

Mochovce-4
SOUTH KOREA

880

440
4

5 360

Shin-Hanul-1

1 340

APR-1400

10/07/2012

3/202250(commercial operation)

yes

Shin-Hanul-2

1 340

APR-1400

19/06/2013

3/202351(commercial operation)

yes

Shin-Kori-5

1 340

APR-1400

03/04/2017

202452yes

APR-1400

20/09/2018

53

2025

yes

yes

Shin-Kori-6
TURKEY

1 340
3

3 342

Akkuyu-1

1 114

VVER V-509

03/04/2018

202454

Akkuyu-2

1 114

VVER V-509

08/4/2020202555

Akkuyu-3

1 114

VVER V-509

10/03/2021

202656

UAE

3

4 035

Barakah-2

1 345

APR-1400

30/05/2013

202157

yes

Barakah-3

1 345

APR-1400

24/09/2014

202258yes

30/07/2015

59

yes

Barakah-4

1 345

APR-14002023

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

UnitsCapacity
MW net

UK

2

3 260

Hinkley Point C-1

1

1 630

Country

Hinkley Point C-2

1

1 630

USA

2

2 234

| 397

Model

Construction Start(dd/mm/yyyy)

Expected Grid
Connection

DelayedEPR-1750

11/12/201860

202661yes

EPR-1750

12/12/2019

62

63

2027

yes

Vogtle-3

1 117

AP-1000

12/03/2013

202264yes

Vogtle-4

1 117

AP-1000

19/11/2013

202365yes

2021–2027

31

World

53

54 047

1976–2021

Sources: Various, compiled by WNISR, 2021

1 - Further delayed. In 2019, CAREM was rescheduled to begin operating in late 2021 or 2022. The construction, suspended in 2019
“due to breaches by contractor companies”, was expected to restart in May 2020, with no indication about the impact this would haveon project’s timeline. See NEI, “Work resumes on nuclear projects in Argentina”, 23 April 2020,see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newswork-resumes-on-nuclear-projects-in-argentina-7887154, accessed 30 July 2020.
In July 2021 CNA announced that NA-SA had been contracted to complete the reactor, and that “this new contract establishes aduration of 36 months to complete the reactor building”. CNEA, “CNEA y la empresa NA-SA firman un contrato para completar laconstrucción del CAREM”, Press Release, 5 July 2021 (in Spanish), see https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/cnea-y-la-empresa-na-safirman-un-contrato-para-completar-la-construccion-del-carem, accessed 8 July 2021.
2 - Rosatom, “First concrete poured at the constructed Rooppur NPP site (Bangladesh)”, Press Release, 30 November 2017,see http://www.rusatom-overseas.com/media/news/first-concrete-poured-at-the-site-constructed-npp-rooppur-bangladesh.html/,
accessed 17 August 2020.
3 - Rosatom, “Main construction of the 2nd Unit of Rooppur NPP begins with the ‘First Concrete’ ceremony”, Press Release,
14 July 2018, see http://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/main-construction-of-the-2nd-unit-of-rooppur-npp-begins-with-the-firstconcrete-ceremony/, accessed 15 July 2018.
4 - Further delayed. In early 2020, startup of Belarusian-2 was officially delayed to 2021. BelTA, “Second reactor of Belarusian nuclear
power plant getting flushed, cleansed”, 17 June 2020, see https://atom.belta.by/en/belaes_en/view/second-reactor-of-belarusiannuclear-power-plant-getting-flushed-cleansed-10678/, accessed 16 July 2020. As of July 2021, fuel loading and criticality are expectedin autumn 2021, and commercial operation in 2022. Platts Nuclear News Flashes, “Belarus Ostravets-2 nuclear plant first criticality
expected in autumn: minister”, 21 May 2021.
5 - The HPR-1000 also goes by the name Hualong One.
6 - Construction period is expected to be 60 months. NEI, “First concrete poured for China’s Changjiang 3”, 1 April 2021,
see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfirst-concrete-poured-for-chinas-changjiang-3-8644649, accessed 2 April 2021.
7 - No information concerning expected startup date in CGN’s announcement of construction start. CGN’s Annual Reports for 2016
to 2020 refer to 2022 as “Expected Date of Commencement of Operation” for Fangchenggang-3 and -4. Sources in China suggested
that because the two units are the first HPR-1000 to be constructed, grid connection appears impossible before 2020–21 for Unit 3 and
2021–22 for Unit 4, although CGN has pledged to do its utmost to connect its first domestic Generation III reactor to the grid in 2021,
at the earliest in November 2021. WNISR2019 advanced the date for the first reactor from 2022 to 2021.
8 - CGN, “Annual Report 2020”, 2021, see http://en.cgnp.com.cn/encgnp/c100882/2021-04/08/c95f2296e95a4aab8a1d7b749996bb43/
files/72fd1f144fa44cefba5496fb45eaaab6.pdf, accessed 1 June 2021.
9 - Delayed. The completion date announced at construction start was 2020. See WNN, “First concrete for sixth Fuqingunit”, 22 December 2015, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-concrete-for-sixth-Fuqing-unit-2212154.html,
accessed 26 June 2016. Grid connection is expected in 2021. CNNC, “First Hualong One begins commercial operation”,
2 February 2021, see https://en.cnnc.com.cn/2021-02/02/c_586987.htm, accessed 30 June 2021.
10 - Delayed. In January 2020, CGN announced that operation of Hongyanhe-6 was delayed to 2022, a delay of six months. CGN
Power, “Inside Information - Operation Briefings for the Fourth Quarter of 2019”, 6 January 2020, see http://en.cgnp.com.cn/encgnp/
c20191226/202001/917f4904f06d4826be1ae98e96780703/files/0627a0191ddb4a07bcfe0b4764a196e4.pdf, accessed 12 January 2020. See
also CGN, “Annual Report 2020”, 2021.
11 - CGN, “Annual Report 2020”, 2021.
12 - IAEA-PRIS reports the twin High Temperature Reactors (HTR-PM) being under construction at the Shidao Bay site plant as
consisting of one 200-MW unit. Accordingly, in previous WNISR editions, Shidao Bay-1 has been accounted for as one unit. However, itturns out that Shidao Bay-1 (also called Shidaowan-1) consists of two 100-MW reactors, and consequently, as of WNISR2020, they are
considered separately, i.o.w. as two units under construction (Shidao Bay 1-1 and 1-2). See CNEA, “Key components of second HTR-PM
reactor connected”, n.d., see http://en.china-nea.cn/site/content/176.html, accessed 10 May 2020.
13 - Repeatedly delayed. Grid connection is now expected in 2021, see Fu Li, “Chinese HTR Program”, presented at the IFNEC SMR
Webinar Series, 23 June 2020, see https://www.ifnec.org/ifnec/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-06/slides_deck_-_webinar_4.pdf,
accessed 5 July 2020. The first fuel was shipped to the site in January 2021, but as of 1 July 2021, no information on fuel loading has

Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 been published. See CNNC, “World’s first HTGR nuclear fuel elements shipped”, 12 January 2021,
see http://en.cnnc.com.cn/2021-01/12/c_581651.htm, accessed 14 January 2021.
14 - Twin reactor. See previous note.
15 - Provisional names for the two CAP1400 at Rongcheng/Shidaowan. Construction of those reactors was introduced in WNISR stats
in 2020 following NIW articles (in particular 10 July 2019) and confirmation from sources in China. In July 2019, NIW classified themas “under construction” on the basis of the NNSA map as of June 2019. See NIW, “Why the Secrecy Over Reactor Construction Start?”,12 July 2019.
16 - According to sources in China, first basemat concrete for the first CAP1400 reactor was poured on 8 April 2019.
See also C.F. Yu, “CGN’s Taipingling Project Moves Ahead”, NIW, 20 December 2019. See previous note.
17 - No official startup dates at this point. According to sources in China, the expected construction duration of CAP1400 from Zheng
Mingguang is about 56 months. WNISR2021 uses 2024 as expected grid connection.
18 - According to sources in China, first basemat concrete for the second CAP1400 reactor was poured in November 2019. See previous
notes.
19 - No official startup dates at this point. WNISR2021 uses 2024 for grid connection date. See previous notes.
20 - CGN, “Annual Report 2019”, CGN Power, April 2020, see http://en.cgnp.com.cn/encgnp/c100882/202004/
f3c20533b65c4cf3a41583190c02057c/files/a5bc0c2ac79c425398a2296b2b054005.pdf, accessed 2 April 2020.
21 - CGN, “Annual Report 2020”, 2021.
22 - CGN, “Annual Report 2020”, 2021. (Changed from 2025 in WNISR2020).
23 - According to sources in China, the contract between China and Russia stipulated a construction duration of 65 months. Rosatom
stated about the Tianwan-7 and -8 project “the units are scheduled to be commissioned in 2026-2027”. See Rosatom, “Start of newunit construction at China’s Tianwan and Xudapu nuclear power plants”, Press Release, 19 May 2021, see https://rosatom.ru/en/presscentre/news/start-of-new-unit-construction-at-china-s-tianwan-and-xudapu-nuclear-power-plants/, accessed 14 June 2021.
24 - WNN, “China begins building pilot fast reactor”, 29 December 2017, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-China-beginsbuilding-pilot-fast-reactor-2912174.html, accessed 30 December 2017.
25 - Not listed in IAEA-PRIS. NEI, “China begins construction of second CFR-600 fast reactor”, 4 January 2021,
see https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newschina-begins-construction-of-second-cfr-600-fast-reactor-8435608,
accessed 5 January 2021.
26 - No official information about construction start/expected grid connection. WNISR2021 uses 2026.
27 - No official startup date at this point. According to sources in China, the expected construction duration of VVER-1200/V491 is
69 months. Rosatom stated about the Xudabao Project, “the units are expected to be commissioned in 2026-2027”.
See Rosatom, “Start of new unit construction at China’s Tianwan and Xudapu nuclear power plants”, 19 May 2021,
see https://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/start-of-new-unit-construction-at-china-s-tianwan-and-xudapu-nuclear-power-plants/,
accessed 14 June 2021.
28 - CNNC, “CNNC’s Zhangzhou nuclear plant goes into construction”, 23 December 2019,see https://en.cnnc.com.cn/2019-12/23/c_435889.htm, accessed 17 January 2020.
29 - No official startup date. Construction duration of Hualong One design given as 60 months.
30 - WNN, “Zhangzhou unit 2 construction starts”, 4 September 2020, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Constructionstarts-of-second-Zhangzhou-unit, accessed 4 September 2020.
31 - No official startup date. Construction duration of Hualong One design given as 60 months.
32 - Further delayed. Grid connection is expected in February 2022, a further delay of about nine months compared
to WNISR2020. See TVO, “The regular electricity production of OL3 EPR will be postponed due to extension of
turbine overhaul”, 20 August 2021, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/
theregularelectricityproductionofol3eprwillbepostponedduetoextensionofturbineoverhaul.html, accessed 29 August 2021. As of
1 July 2021, hot functional test was ongoing. TVO, “Olkiluoto 3 prepares for first criticality”, 30 June 2021, see https://www.tvo.fi/en/
index/news/pressreleasesstockexchangereleases/2021/olkiluoto3preparesforfirstcriticality.html, accessed 1 July 2021.
33 - Probably further delayed. Delayed many times from its original planned startup date of 2012. Latest provisional dates are fuelloading by the end of 2022 and grid connection in 2023. However, there are many uncertainties and EDF warned that “The risk
relating to the schedule and completion cost is therefore very high and the project could face other potentially significant additionalcosts and delays in the event of new contingencies…”; see EDF, “Universal Registration Document 2020—Annual Financial Report”,
filed 15 March 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/investors-shareholders/reference-documents,
accessed 26 July 2021.
34 - Further delayed (five months since WNISR2021). MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector Projects
Costing Rs. 150 crore & above (January-March, 2021)”, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2021,
see http://www.cspm.gov.in/english/qr/QPSIR4thQTR2020-21.pdf, accessed 30 June 2021.
35 - Delayed. Although NPCIL, still uses 2023 for Kudankulam-3 & -4 as expected date of commercial operation, NIW reports that
“Units 3 and 4 … will now be completed in September 2024 and March 2025, respectively, according to a government document.”
Rakesh Sharma, “Kudankulam-5 Construction Start Marks New Milestone”, NIW, 2 July 2021.
36 - Delayed. See previous note.

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37 - Rosatom, “ROSATOM begins construction of Kudankulam NPP Unit 5 in India”, 29 June 2021, see https://rosatom.ru/en/presscentre/news/rosatom-begins-construction-of-kudankulam-npp-unit-5-in-india-/, accessed 30 June 2021.
38 - The expected construction duration of Kudankulam-5 is 66 months., Lok Sabha, “Unstarred Question No.2756: Kudankulam
Nuclear Power Plant”, Department of Atomic Energy, Answered by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances &Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, 10 March 2021.
39 - Repeatedly delayed. Operation is now expected in October 2022, a delay of one year compared to WNISR2020. Lok Sabha,“Unstarred Question No. 330: Construction of PFBR”, Department of Atomic Energy, Answered by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for
Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, 3 February 2021,
see https://dae.gov.in/writereaddata/lsusq%20330.pdf.
40 - Delayed. As of March 2020, anticipated date for commissioning was March 2022, a year and a half delay compared to WNISR2019.
Rajya Sabha, “Unstarred Question No. 1602: Commissioning of heavy water reactor at Kakrapar Nuclear Plant”, Department of Atomic
Energy, Answered by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office,
Government of India, 5 March 2020. No detail in 2021 in MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector Projects
Costing Rs. 150 crore & above (January-March, 2021)”, 2021, op. cit.
41 - Repeatedly delayed. No indications of changes since WNISR2020. MoSPI, “Project Implementation Status Report of Central
Sector Projects Costing Rs. 150 crore & above (January-March, 2021)”, 2021, op. cit.
42 - Original construction of Bushehr-2 had started in February 1976, and the reactor remained listed as under construction in
PRIS-IAEA, “Nuclear Power Reactors in the World”, until the 1994 edition. See WNISR, “Iran: Construction Restart of Busheer-2”,
14 November 2019, see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Iran-Construction-Restart-of-Busheer-2.html.
43 - Construction status unclear. 2025 based on WNISR estimates.
44 - Reportedly delayed to first quarter 2022, see The News, “PM Imran Khan inaugurates 1,100 MW Chinese-built nuclear power
plant”, 21 May 2021, see https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/837916-pm-imran-khan-inaugurates-1100-mw-chinese-built-nuclearpower-plant, accessed 22 July 2021, from planned startup in 2021, see “PNRA Annual Report 2018”, 2019 and “PNRA Annual Report2019”, 2020.
45 - Rosatom, “ROSATOM starts construction of unique power unit with BREST-OD-300 fast neutron reactor”, 8 June 2021,
see https://www.rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/rosatom-starts-construction-of-unique-power-unit-with-brest-od-300-fastneutron-reactor/, accessed 5 July 2021.
46 - WNA, “Nuclear Power in Russia”, Updated May 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/
countries-o-s/russia-nuclear-power.aspx, accessed 30 July 2021.
47 - Ibidem.
48 - Further delayed. Fuel loading and startup expected in 2021. Slovenské elektrárne, “Slovenské elektrárne approaches thecommissioning of Mochovce 3”, 13 May 2021, see https://www.seas.sk/article/slovenske-elektrarne-approaches-the-commissioning-ofmochovce-3/441, accessed 30 June 2021.
49 - Further delayed. Fuel loading of Mochovce-3 is expected in 2023.
50 - Further delayed since WNISR2020. As of July 2021, Commercial operation is expected in March 2022 (almost 1.5 year
delay compared to WNISR2020), with fuel loading taking place in July 2021. KEPCO, “Acquisition of Operating License
for Shin-Hanul Unit 1 and First Fuel Loading”, 16 July 2021, see https://www.kepco-enc.com/eng/selectBbsNttView.
do?key=1621&bbsNo=342&nttNo=37370&searchCtgry=&searchCnd=all&searchKrwd=&pageIndex=1&integrDeptCode=,
accessed 27 July 2021.
51 - Further delayed since WNISR2020. As of June 2021, Commercial operation is expected in March 2023 (over 1.5 year delay
compared to WNISR2020). KHNP, “Nuclear Power Construction—Shin-Hanul #1,2”, Various Dates, see https://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/
content/547/main.do?mnCd=EN03020303, last accessed 30 June 2021.
52 - Delayed. Construction officially started in April 2017, suspended in July to resume October of the same year. Commercial operation
at construction start was October 2021, it is now expected in March 2023, almost 1.5 year of delay. KHNP, “Nuclear Power Construction– Shin-Kori #5,6”, Various Dates, see http://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/content/548/main.do?mnCd=EN03020304, last accessed 30 June 2021.
However, in March 2021, KHNP applied for an extension of the construction license, with a completion schedule for Shin Kori-5 now
extended one additional year until 31 March 2024, and for Shin Kori-6, nine months later to 31 March 2025.
53 - Delayed. KHNP, “Nuclear Power Construction—Shin-Kori #5,6”, Various dates, see http://cms.khnp.co.kr/eng/content/548/main.
do?mnCd=EN03020304, last accessed 30 June 2021. See previous note.
54 - Delayed. In March 2019, the project management announced that it had finished the concreting of the basemat for the nuclear
island and that it was now expected that Akkuyu-1 would be physically completed in 2023, with generation coming at a later date. Phil
Chaffee, “New Build, Revised 2023 Milestone for Akkuyu”, NIW, 29 March 2019.
55 - Official startup date is often quoted as 2024, but WNISR2021 uses a 5-year construction period. Daily Sabah, “Construction starts
on 2nd unit of Turkey’s 1st nuclear power plant Akkuyu”, 28 June 2020, see https://www.dailysabah.com/business/energy/constructionstarts-on-2nd-unit-of-turkeys-1st-nuclear-power-plant-akkuyu, accessed 28 June 2020.
56 - The Akkuyu reactors are officially to be completed one per year starting in 2023. See WNN, “Akkuyu construction to be completed
by 2026, says project CEO”, 10 February 2021, see https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Akkuyu-fully-operational-by-2026,says-project?feed=feed, accessed 10 April 2021. However, WNISR2021 keeps a 5-year construction time, and a one-per-year startup
frequency, beginning with Akkuyu-1 in 2024.

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57 - Delayed. Fuel loading was completed at the end of March 2021, and startup is expected later in 2021. See ENEC, “Unit 1 of Barakah
Plant Started Commercial Operations”, 6 April 2021, see https://www.enec.gov.ae/news/latest-news/unit-1-of-barakah-plant-startedcommercial-operations/, accessed 30 June 2021. Connected to the grid on 14 September 2021.
58 - Delayed. WNISR2021 keeps 2022, a three-year delay compared to original schedule.
59 - Delayed. WNISR2021 keeps 2023, a three-year delay compared to original schedule.
60 - See WNISR, “The Oddly Discreet Construction Start of Hinkley Point C”, 29 December 2018,see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-Oddly-Discreet-Construction-Start-of-Hinkley-Point-C.html, accessed 24 August 2019.
61 - First delay acknowledged. EDF, “Hinkley Point C project update”, Press Release, 27 January 2021, see https://www.edf.fr/en/theedf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/hinkley-point-c-project-update-1, accessed 27 January 2021.
62 - See WNISR, “Strangely Belated Announcement of Hinkley Point C-2 Construction Start”, 18 March 2020,see https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Strangely-Belated-Announcement-of-Hinkley-Point-C-2-Construction-Start.html.
63 - No official startup date announced at construction start. Although there is no official confirmation of delay at this point, EDF
acknowledged the delay for HPC-1, and stated “the risk of COD [Commercial Operation Date] delay of Units 1 and 2 is maintained at
respectively 15 and 9 months” and “the level of probability remains high” for the realization of this risk. WNISR2021 thus considers
both units as delayed.
64 - Further delayed. “The company currently projects a Unit 3 in-service date in the second quarter of 2022 and a Unit 4 inservice date in the first quarter of 2023”. Georgia Power, “Georgia Power announces revised schedule, cost forecast for Vogtle
units 3 & 4”, 29 July 2021, see https://www.georgiapower.com/company/news-center/2021-articles/cost-forecast-for-vogtle.html,
accessed 30 July 2021.
65 - Further delayed. See Previous note.

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ANNEX 5 – ABBREVIATIONSELECTRICAL AND OTHER UNITS
KW

kilowatt (unit of installed electric power capacity)kWhkilowatt hour (unit of electricity production or consumption)MWmegawatt (106 watts)

MWemegawatt electric (as distinguished from megawatt thermal, MWt)

GW

gigawatt (109 watts)

GWe

gigawatt electricTWhterawatt hour (1012 watt-hours)

Bq

BecquerelmSvmillisievert

mSv/hmillisievert per hour

Sv

SievertSv/h

Sievert per hour

ABWR

Advanced Boiling Water Reactor

AEA

Atomic Energy Act (U.S.)

AECL

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

AEOI

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran

AHWR

Advanced Heavy Water Reactor

ALPS

Advanced Liquid Processing Systems

APR

Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (Reactor Type)ASLB

Atomic Safety Licensing Board (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

ASN

Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire – Nuclear Safety Authority (France)

BAI

Board of Audit and Inspection (South Korea)

BNEF

Bloomberg New Energy Finance

BOO

Build-Own-Operate

BWR

Boiling Water Reactor (Reactor design)

CANDU

CANadian Deuterium Uranium (Reactor design, Canada)

CAREM

Central Argentina de Elementos Modulares – Small Modular PWR Design (under construction in/by Argentina)

CEA

Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives – The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission
or Central Electricity Authority (India)

CEFR

China Experimental Fast Reactor

CEZ

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

ČEZČeské Energetické Závody – State-owned Energy Utility (Czech Republic)

CfD

Contract for Difference

CGN

China General Nuclear Power Corporation

CLP

Containment Liner Plates

CNEA

Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica – National Atomic Energy Commission (Argentina)
or China Nuclear Energy Association

CNIC

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (Japan)

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CNNC

China National Nuclear Corporation

CNSC

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

DOE

Department of Energy (South Africa or U.S.)

EDF

Électricité de France – Power Utility (France)

EIA

Environmental Impact Assessment
or Energy Information Administration, also referred to as U.S.EIA (U.S.)

ENEC

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation

ENEL

Ente Nazionale per l’Energia Elettrica – National Electric Power Corporation (Italy)

ENSREG

European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group

EPR

European Pressurized Water Reactor

FA

Fiche d’Anomalie — Anomaly Report (EDF Categories)

FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation (U.S.)

FERC

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

FL&P

Florida Light and Power (U.S. Utility)

FL3

Flamanville-3 (French Reactor)

FNC

Fiche de Non-Conformité – Non-Conformance Report (EDF Categories)

FOAK

First-Of-A-Kind

GCR

Gas-Cooled Reactor (Reactor Type)or Global Construction Review (Publication)

GE

General Electric (Company, U.S.)

HDR

Heißdampfreaktor – Superheated steam reactor

HFT

Hot Functional Test

HTGRHigh Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

HTR

High Temperature (Gas Cooled) Reactor

HTR-PM

High-Temperature gas-cooled Reactor Pebble-bed Module (Demonstration plant, China)

HWBLWR

Heavy-Water Moderated Boiling Light-Water Cooled Reactor

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

IEA

International Energy Agency

IESO

Independent Electricity System Operator (Canada)

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IRENAInternational Renewable Energy Agency

IRP

Integrated Resource Plan

ITDB

Incident and Trafficking Database (UNECE, United Nations)

JAEC

Japan Atomic Energy Commission or Jordan Atomic Energy Commission

JAPC

Japan Atomic Power Company

JCER

Japan Center for Economic Research

JPDR

Japan Power Demonstration Reactor

KA-CAREKing Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (Saudi Arabia)

KEPCO

Kansai Electric Power Company (Japan)
or Korea Electric Power Corporation (South Korea)

KHNP

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (South Korea)

KNPP

Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (India)

KPMG

Klynveld, Peat, Marwick & Goerdeler (Company)

LCOE

Levelized Cost of Energy| 402

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LDP

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

LTE

Long-Term Enclosure

LTO

Long-Term Outage

LWGR

Light-Water Gas-cooled Reactors (Reactor type)

MAFF

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Japan)

MEMR

Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (Jordan)

METI

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Japan)

MHLW

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (Japan)

MoU

Memorandum of Understanding

MOX

Mixed Oxide Fuel

NDA

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (U.K.)

NDC

Nationally Determined Contributions

NEA

Nuclear Energy Agency (of the OEDC) or National Energy Administration (China)

NEI

Nuclear Energy Institute (U.S.)
or Nuclear Engineering International (Publication)

NEPA

National Environmental Policy Act (U.S.)

NISA

Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Japan)

NIW

Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (Publication)

NOAK

Nth-Of-A-Kind

NPCIL

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited

NPP

Nuclear Power Plant

NPPA

Nuclear Power Plants Authority (Egypt)

NPS

Nuclear Power Station or National Policy Statement (U.K.)

NRA

Nuclear Regulation Authority (Japan)

NRC

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

NSC

New Safe Confinement (Chernobyl, Ukraine) or Nuclear Safety Commission (Japan, now NRA)

NSSC

Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (South Korea)

NTI

Nuclear Threat Initiative

NW

Nucleonics Week (Publication)

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OL3

Olkiluoto-3 (Reactor, Finland)

ONR

Office for Nuclear Regulation (UK)

OPG

Ontario Power Generation (Canada)

PAEC

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

PBO

Parent Body Organization

PFBR

Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (Reactor, India)

PGE

Polska Grupa Energetyczna — State-owned Public Power Company (Poland)

PHWR

Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (Reactor type)

PLEX

Plant Life Extension

PPA

Power Purchase Agreement

PRIS

Power Reactor Information System (of the IAEA)

PV

Photovoltaic| 403

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PWR

Pressurized Water Reactor (Reactor type)

R&D

Research and Development

RAB

Regular Asset Base

REMITRegulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (EU)RPV

Reactor Pressure Vessel

RTE

Réseau de Transport d’Électricité — Transmission System Operator (France)

RVI

Reactor Vessel Internals

RWE

Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk — Rhine-Westphalia Power Utility (Germany)

SAUEZM

State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management

SCG&E

South Caroline Electric & Gas (Company, U.S.)SCHEER

EU-Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks

SE

Slovenské Elektrárne — Slovak Power Utility

SGHWR

Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor (Reactor Design, U.K.)

SMART

System-integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMR Design, South Korea)

SMR

Small Modular Reactor

Sogin

Società Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA – State-owned Decommissioning Company (Italy)

SSMStrålsäkerhetsmyndigheten – Radiation Safety Authority (Sweden)

START

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism

STUK

Säteilyturvakeskus – Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Finland)SÚJB

Státní úřad pro jadernou bezpečnost – State Office for Nuclear Safety (Czech Republic)

TEPCO

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Japan)

TMI

Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (U.S.)

TVEL

Nuclear fuel cycle Company (Russia)

TVO

Teollisuuden Voima Oyj – Nuclear Power Company (Finland)

UAE

United Arab Emirates

UAMPS

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (U.S.)ÚJDÚrad jadrového dozoru Slovenskej republiky – Nuclear Regulatory Authority (Slovakia)

UNFCCC

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

UNSCEAR

United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation

VAT

Value Added Tax

VVER

Vodo-Vodianoï Energuetitcheski Reaktor – Russian Pressurized Water Reactor Designs

WANO

Word Association of Nuclear Operators

WNA

World Nuclear Association

WNN

World Nuclear News (Publication)| 404

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ANNEX 6 –ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mycle Schneider is an independent international analyst on energy and nuclear policy
based in Paris. He is the Coordinator and Publisher of the World Nuclear Industry Status
Report (WNISR). He is a founding board member of the International Energy Advisory
Council (IEAC) and served as the Coordinator of the Seoul International Energy Advisory
Council (SIEAC). He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), based
at Princeton University, the International Nuclear Security Forum (INSF), both in the U.S, andthe International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group (INRAG), Austria. He provided informationand consulting services, amongst others, to the Austrian Ministry for Climate Action,
Environment, Energy, the Belgian Energy Minister, the French and German Environment
Ministries, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Commission, and the French Institute for Radiation
Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). Schneider has given evidence and held briefings at
national Parliaments in 15 countries and at the European Parliament. He has given lecturesat over 20 universities and engineering schools around the globe. In 1997, along with Japan’s
Jinzaburo Takagi, he received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative
Nobel Prize”.

Antony Froggatt joined Chatham House in 2007 where he is Senior Research Fellow
and Deputy-Director of the Environment and Society Programme. He studied energy andenvironmental policy at the University of Westminster and the Science Policy Research Unit at
Sussex University and is currently an Associate Member of the Energy Policy Group at Exeter
University. For over 20 years he has been involved in the publication of the World Nuclear
Industry Status Report (WNISR). At Chatham House, he specializes on global electricity policy
and the public understanding of climate change. He has worked as an independent consultant
for two decades with environmental groups, academics and public bodies in Europe and Asia
as well as a freelance journalist. His most recent research project is understanding the energy
and climate policy implications of Brexit.

Julie Hazemann, based in Paris, France, is the Director of EnerWebWatch, an international
documentation monitoring service, specializing in energy and climate issues, launched in
2004. As an information engineer and researcher, she has maintained, since 1992, a world
nuclear reactor database and undertakes data-modelling and data-visualization work for theWorld Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR). Active in information and documentation
project-management, she has a strong tropism for information structuration, dataviz anddevelopment of electronic information products. She also undertakes specialized translation
and research activities for specific projects. She is a member of négaWatt (France) and develops
EnerWebWatch in the framework of the Coopaname Coop.

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Ali Ahmad is a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Project on Managing theAtom (MTA) and International Security Program (ISP). His research interests include energy
security and resilience and the political economy of nuclear energy in newcomer markets,with focus on the Middle East. Prior to joining MTA, Ali served as Director of the Energy
Policy and Security Program at the American University of Beirut. From 2013 to 2016, Ali
was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security
where he worked on informing nuclear diplomacy with Iran. Outside academia, Ali is a seniorconsultant at the World Bank advising the Energy and Extractive Industries Global Practice.
Ali holds a first degree in Physics from the Lebanese University and a PhD in Engineering from
Cambridge University.

Mariana Budjeryn is a Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Formerly, sheheld appointments as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MTA, a fellow at Harvard Davis
Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and as a visiting professor at Tufts University andPeace Research Institute Frankfurt. Mariana Budjeryn’s research focuses on the international
non-proliferation regime, arms control, and post-Soviet nuclear history. Her analyticalcontributions appeared in The Nonproliferation Review, Harvard International Review, World
Affairs Journal, Arms Control Today, The Washington Post, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, War
on the Rocks, and in the publications of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
where she is a Global Fellow. Mariana Budjeryn’s book “Inheriting the Bomb: Soviet Collapse
and Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine” is forthcoming in 2022 with Johns Hopkins University
Press. She holds a PhD in Political Science, an MA in International Relations from Central
European University (formerly) in Budapest, Hungary, and a BA in Political Science from theKyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine.

Yuichi Kaido, since his registration as a lawyer in 1981, has been involved in numerous lawsuits
related to nuclear power, including the Monju lawsuit, the Rokkasho nuclear fuel cycle lawsuit,and the Hamaoka nuclear power plant lawsuit. As Secretary-General of the Japan Federationof Bar Associations (April 2010–May 2012), he was involved in the legal response to theearthquake disaster and the nuclear power plant accident. As co-chair of the National Liaison
Group of Lawyers for a Nuclear Power Free Japan, he has been involved in a number of lawsuits
to hold TEPCO executives and others criminally and civilly responsible for the aftermath of the
March 11 disaster and to halt operation of nuclear power plants. Publications include “Nuclear
Power Plant Litigation”, (Iwanami Shinsho, 2011); “Independent Judiciary Confronts Nuclear
Power Plant Litigation: Reevaluation of the Supreme Court Judgment on Ikata Nuclear Power
Plant”, (Hanrei Jihou, No. 2354, 11 February 2008); “Safety Required of Nuclear Power Plants
in the Disaster Archipelago: The Role of the Constitution in Denuclearization Litigation”,(Constitutional Law Review, No. 6, May 2020, Shinzansha Publishing Co).

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 Naoto Kan is a Japanese politician and former Prime Minister of Japan (2010–2011). Since 2017,
he serves his 12th term as elected Member of the House of Representatives of the National
Diet of Japan and is Chief Executive Advisor to the Constitutional Democratic Party ofJapan (CDPJ). He was first elected in 1980 and remained in office until 1996, when he became
Minister of Health and Welfare (1996). Prior to becoming Prime Minister in 2010, he held
various Government positions within the Yukio Hatoyama Cabinet, including Minister of State
for National Policy (2009), Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy (2009), Deputy
Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy (2010). Within the
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), he served as President (1998–1999; 2002–2004 and 2010–2011), Vice-President (2006), and Secretary-General (2000–2002). Naoto Kan graduated fromthe Faculty of Applied Physics of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1970 and received his
Patent Attorney license in 1971.

Tadahiro Katsuta holds a PhD in plasma physics from Hiroshima University (1997). He iscurrently a Professor at Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. During 2014–2015 he was a Visiting
Fellow in the Program on Science and Global Security (PSGS) at Princeton University, U.S.
He is researching Japan’s spent fuel management issues. He is also studying the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant accident and following the new regulation standards with a focus
on technical and political aspects. He has been appointed by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation
Authority (NRA) as a member of the study teams on the New Regulatory Requirements forCommercial Nuclear Power Reactors, for Nuclear Fuel Facilities, Research Reactors, and for
Nuclear Waste Storage/Disposal Facilities. During 2008–2009, he conducted research on
multilateral nuclear fuel cycle systems as a Visiting Fellow at PSGS. During 2006–2008, he
carried out research at the University of Tokyo on separated plutonium issues linked to the
Rokkasho reprocessing plant. During 1999–2005, he worked as a researcher at the Citizens’
Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) in Tokyo.

Thibault Laconde is the Founding Chair of Callendar, a company focused on physical climate
risks assessment, its customers include large infrastructure operators and developers in France
and beyond. He previously worked for the French Ministry of Defense as well as for various
humanitarian and development organizations. He is also active in the vulgarization of climate
risks, in particular with Énergie & Développement, an award-winning blog, and teaching
on climate transition issues at French Engineering School CentraleSupelec (2016–2019).
Thibault Laconde holds an engineering degree from Supelec and a Master of Administrationfrom Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Mathilde Le Moal currently works as a research associate for RealistRevolt. She holds a BA in
Politics and International Relations from the University of York and a MSc in “Global Crime,
Justice and Security”, a multi-disciplinary course combining insights from criminology, law
and international politics, which she attended at the University of Edinburgh. Specifically,
her research interests include nuclear deterrence, disarmament/non-proliferation as well as
nuclear trafficking and nuclear terrorism.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Hisako Sakiyama is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the 3/11 Fund for Children with
Thyroid Cancer, which was established in 2016 to provide various forms of support, including
financial, for children diagnosed with thyroid cancer following the Fukushima Nuclear Power
Plant Disaster. Hisako Sakiyama has also acted as expert witness in a number of lawsuits
following the Fukushima disaster. She is a member of the Takagi School, founded by the late
Jinzaburo Takagi in 1999 to train citizen scientists. She served as a member of the National Dietof Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission. She received
her M.D. and Ph.D. from Chiba University School of Medicine and was a research associate in
the department of biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1968–1972). She was a senior researcher at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS),
working on cancer cell biology (1975–2000).

Tatsujiro Suzuki is a Vice Director, Professor of Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
at Nagasaki University (RECNA), Japan. Before joining RECNA, he was a Vice Chairmanof Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) of the Cabinet Office from January 2010 toMarch 2014. Until then, he was an Associate Vice President of the Central Research Institute ofElectric Power Industry (CRIEPI) in Japan (1996–2009) and Visiting Professor at the Graduate
School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo (2005–2009), an Associate Director of MIT’s
International Program on Enhanced Nuclear Power Safety from 1988–1993 and a Research
Associate at MIT’s Center for International Studies (1993–1995). He is a member of the Advisory
Board of Parliament’s Special Committee on Nuclear Energy since June 2017. He is also a
Council Member of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (2007–2009 and from2014~), Co-Chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) and a Board memberof Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN).
Dr. Suzuki has a PhD in nuclear engineering from Tokyo University (1988).

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Directorof the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. During 2020–2021, he was a Scholar at thePeter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from
Boston University. Ramana is the author of “The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy
in India” (Penguin Books, 2012) and co-editor of “Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream” (Orient
Longman, 2003). He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), theInternational Nuclear Risk Assessment Group (INRAG) and the Canadian Pugwash Group.
He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leo Szilard Award from the American
Physical Society.

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Wo r l d N u c l e a r I n d u s t r y S t a t u s R e p o r t | 2 0 2 1 

Ben Wealer is a Research Associate at the Workgroup Infrastructure Policy (WIP) at Berlin
University of Technology (TU Berlin), and guest researcher at DIW Berlin (German Institutefor Economic Research). He holds a PhD in economics and an MSc in Industrial Engineeringfrom TU Berlin. His field of research is the political economy of nuclear power with a focus
on decommissioning, radioactive waste management, and the economics of nuclear power
plant newbuild. He is a founding member of a research project on nuclear energy in Germany,
Europe, and beyond run jointly by TU Berlin and DIW Berlin, and he is a co-author of the first
German independent decommissioning monitoring survey.

Agnès Stienne is an artist, cartographer, and independent graphic designer. She has
contributed for over a decade to the French journal Le Monde Diplomatique, and the
Visioncarto.net website dedicated to cartographical experimentation. She has creatednumerous “narrative cartographics” to illustrate a wide range of complex subjects andissues. The results of her research are featured on Visioncarto.net, as “geo-poetic” briefs, inwhich she uses aquarelle-paint to translate her findings into maps and data-visualizations.
In 2021, she published “Inside the nebula of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, a seriesof visualizations of the Foundation’s 2017 funding and donations. For several years, she has
been leading a research project focusing on agricultural practices, “land grabbing” and otherfundamental agricultural and food related issues. Among her latest works set in continuity
with her pieces on the “Geography of the oil palm”, she created a series of paintings based onsatellite images from Google Earth, which were exhibited along with her works “Geopoetics ofFields” (“Géopoétique des champs”) in Le Mans (France) in October 2020 and February 2021.

Friedhelm Meinaß, born in 1948, is a visual artist and painter based in the Frankfurt area,
Germany. His characteristic pieces including his cover art for Nina Hagen, are on display in theGerman History Museum in Berlin, and his work is internationally acclaimed. Amongst others,
Meinaß has cooperated with Leonard Bernstein, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Vladimir Horowitz
and Billy Joel. He is collaborating with the Designer Constantin E. Breuer, who congenially
implements his ideas. Meinaß held a professorship at the University of Design in Darmstadt inthe early 1970s.

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